‘“And you know,” she went on, “I’m ignorant. Very ignorant. I’m known as a teacher of English, French and German. But also I like looking at paintings, yet what do I know about painting? I cannot put two colours together and produce a third; and I can hardly draw a straight line. Then there’s music. I know what I like, but I can’t play even one instrument. And politics too. I know little or nothing about politics, and the little I know I gather from the papers; and papers, as you know, glibly contradict each other, just as both sides in Parliament do, both declaring themselves right and never wrong. You never hear one side saying, ‘Let us pause a moment and thrash this thing out together.’ Well, that wouldn’t be politics would it? As for science, I’m afraid even to think about science; and I have found out that very few people really know about science, but they think they are being very sharp when they ask questions, especially at intellectual meetings. Two sides may argue about God. Can one be a scientist and at the same time believe in God? That is a very common point, so often thrown around. Oh, my! There’s a question that wants answering.
‘“But I will tell you, Rosie, one thing I do believe in, and that is order. If you have order in a business, in a profession, in anything you take up, some good will come of it. As I see it, the order that keeps the cosmos in its various rotations is the same order that brightens a home, gives success, as I’ve said, to a business or profession, which in itself gives purpose to life. I look up at the sky at night and I see it in motion, and its motion, as I discern it, spells order. So you could say, Rosie, there is one thing I do know besides teaching at various times English, Latin, French and German, and that is, I do know something about order. Which brings us back to you and your many façades. Well, wear as many as you like, my dear, but always remember that you cannot cover up yourself, not your real self.”
‘Then what d’you think she did, Mrs C? She patted my head, like you pat Bill’s, and she walked out. But I didn’t follow her. I took a pencil and I scribbled down practically word for word…well, not really exactly, but at least the gist of it as I’ve just told you.’
‘Well, all I can say now,’ said Fred, ‘is I think you are a very clever girl, Rosie, and that memory of yours is going to take you places. At the same time, I think you have struck lucky with your tutor.’
And Sally now put in, ‘And how do I see you, Rosie? I see you one day as the wife of a famous man, standing at the foot of a staircase receiving his guests, some’—she laughed now—‘with façades inches deep.’
It sounded as though Rosie was laughing and yet, at the same time, Sally wondered if she was crying as she spluttered, ‘You know what I think? I think you are two of the nicest, kindest, loveliest and most highly polished liars in the world.’
‘We mean it.’ They said the words together; then Sally added, ‘We do, Rosie, we do. We have felt from the beginning, and we have told you, you’re going places. With your memory and determination there’ll be nothing to stop you.’
‘Unless she falls in love,’ Fred put in, as an aside.
‘Oh, no, Mr C; you needn’t fear that. Not after what I’ve seen of marriage. You know, there are very few people like you two or Mr Watson and his funny little missis. You would think, for instance, that Peter was happily married, wouldn’t you? Well, he’s not. She’s an out-and-out snob and she gives him a rough time, by what James says. By the way, James phoned here and told me all about your visit to the East End, at least your version of it, ’cos he stayed back with his mother. How he wishes he had been there. And don’t you think it was wonderful of Charlie to do what he did for the Connollys? Even James knew nothing about this until Pontoon Mouth, as we called him, gave his father the paper bag to take to them, just before he flew back home, which, I suppose, is the last we’ll see of him, anyway at this end.’
‘Oh, no, it won’t be,’ Sally said, ‘because you must have heard that he’s going into business with his father, so he’ll be back and forward here in the future.’
‘Oh, yes, yes. But have you ever heard, Mrs C, of a heavy whisky drinker going on the wagon? He might for a week or two but he’ll slide back. There was a place near us in Birmingham where they paid the earth to be dried out; at least, somebody paid the earth to have it done; but they started soaking again once they got through those gates. Anyway, time will tell. But it was nice of him, I must admit, to get the Connollys out of what James said was a stinking hole. They were such a good family and they fell in with the scheme and carried it out right to the end, particularly the girl called Mattie.’
There was the sound of a door opening and a voice calling, and Rosie answered, ‘All right, Phil; tell Gran I’m going to bed this minute.’
‘She’ll send Miss Collins up, and she’ll put you to bed.’
‘I don’t think I want that, do you?’ said Rosie sotto voce. ‘Anyway, I’m standing here with my eyes closed.’
‘Well, get yourself off!’ said Fred, sharply. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for talking later.’
‘Goodnight, Rosie,’ Sally said softly. ‘Ring again soon; I want to hear more about Miss Barrington.’
‘I will, Mama. I will, Papa.’ Then on a laugh, she added, ‘Goodnight, love. Pat Bill for me.’
Chapter Eight
Rosie telephoned the Carpenters two or three times before the trial of her mother and the men she had paid to murder her husband. Her father was now at home and being nursed and pampered by his mother; and he was so glad, they could gather from what she said, that he had the boy with him, and of course Rosie herself. Although she didn’t put it into words they could see that her father was claiming a lot of her attention.
When the day of the trial came, the two men escaped the charge of attempted murder because no implement that could have inflicted the wound at the back of Mr Stevenson’s head had been found on them, or anything on the ground about except a lump of sharp rock near where he was lying.
The two men charged had been very open about the whole thing, and in doing so had exposed the power their aunt held over her family. Of course they couldn’t prove that they hadn’t set out to murder him, they could only keep repeating that before they attacked him they had told themselves that they weren’t going to do him in and that whatever happened they were going to inform the police anonymously over the phone afterwards that a man needing attention was lying at a certain place.
Asked why they ran from the scene, they said that their victim had been handing out punishment too, as could be seen from their own faces; but they became frightened when he fell to the ground and then didn’t move. Anyway, the charge had been for assault and battery and for co-operating with the prisoner to do her husband harm. Their plea was that they knew she wanted him murdered but they weren’t going to carry that out, although she had paid them at least part of the sum promised if he were found dead.
All through the case Florence Stevenson swore that the men had made this up because she had refused to loan them money, and she also insisted that she had no ill will against her husband. At one stage she was asked by the prosecuting counsel why, then, when the police came to arrest her, was she ready for flight? Her two suitcases were not only packed with clothes but with a large number of banknotes. As for her big handbag, that too was full of paper money, together with three well-stocked building society booklets.
She was found guilty of inciting to murder and was jailed for ten years. Her two frightened nephews were given five years each.
Yet poor Mr Stevenson was not yet finished with trouble. On that particular Saturday morning after leaving the boat with Rosie, he had gone straight to his solicitor and started divorce proceedings; and the outcome of the murder case against his wife had helped to shorten the time for the divorce to be made absolute. But during this period of waiting while he convalesced with his mother, leaving the factory in the capable hands of Mr Jackson and his departmental heads, he corresponded with his former mistress, who now suggested that she move to be nearer him. He immediately te
lephoned her and told her not to do this. He had been thinking the matter over, he said, and she would not find him ungenerous, she would not want for anything; he would see to that. The telephone went down with a bang and within twenty-four hours she appeared on the doorstep of his mother’s house and demanded to see him. When told he was in the office she said she would wait until he returned.
His mother, Mrs Stevenson, had never met her son’s mistress, and what she saw of her now caused her both surprise and dislike. The surprise was that she was quite a youngish woman in her early forties, and she was obviously well educated. Definitely she was a woman with her wits about her, and both Miss Collins and Miss Barrington found that here was a woman who wasn’t to be pushed or talked off. So George Stevenson on his return was made aware of his visitor before he entered the morning room.
Rosie said that her dad’s voice had been quiet when he greeted her with, ‘Hello, Iris. I’m surprised to see you.’ She had answered him to the effect that he shouldn’t be, as she had looked after him for nine years and at one time he had talked of marrying her. Rosie said that although his voice did not rise, he strongly reminded her that more recently he had warned her that if he were ever free he would never marry again. ‘Now I am free,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to marry you or anyone else. So there you have it.’
To this she had answered, ‘Well, there’s a way to make you change your mind. I’m going on a fortnight’s holiday. I wouldn’t go now only it is already booked, but when I come back I hope you will be seeing things in a different light. Don’t forget, George, that I have lived with you and mothered you and listened to your moans about your wife and family for nine years. I was a young woman when you bought that house, and then all you wanted was to live with me forever, for you were sick of the tribe your wife had about you. You were a man twenty-odd years my senior, to me an old man, but you talked me into it and you got the house and I made it a home for you.’
‘Aye, and everything had to be the best, hadn’t it? And your housekeeping money would’ve kept a family of ten going. I wasn’t stupid or blind.’
‘Well, George, I advise you not to go on being stupid or blind, that’s if you know what’s good for you, because I might be tempted to take you to court.’
‘The minute she was out of the door,’ Rosie said, ‘Dad was on the phone to his solicitor and put the situation before him, and the solicitor said that he should immediately have a board put up outside to say that the house was for sale, together with its contents.’
‘Well, the board wasn’t up a matter of days, before it was down. One of the single men who had come south when the factory moved to London was getting married and wanted to start up a home for his wife. This house seemed to be the very thing. So that part was ended. Another was that Dad had left with his solicitor a letter saying that he would pass over to Iris a considerable sum of money if she refrained from any legal process.’
Apparently that was the end of George Stevenson’s plight as far as the Carpenters were concerned, for they heard no more of the matter from Rosie and concluded that the offered settlement had proved too hard for Iris to resist.
After all the excitement, life seemed to settle down. Soon Fred and Sally had resumed their quiet existence of work and domesticity.
As the austerity of the post-war years gradually relaxed, holidays abroad were becoming a possibility, and new ideas and fabrics were available for doing up their house, so that they felt it was becoming more their own and had begun to throw off the sadness of the past.
And trade was beginning to improve too. Sally had made several trips to London to investigate the fashion scene, and now ordered regularly from a number of manufacturers with whom she had established contact there. Her shop, Eve, was considered fashionable locally, and Sally was finding a year-by-year increase in her turnover, and in her profits. Greatly daring, she had taken on extra help—a pleasant, enthusiastic school leaver from the girls’ grammar school called Janice. Once she had trained the girl, who turned out to have excellent dress sense, Sally felt she could go away occasionally. Then the wife of a colleague of Fred’s, who was at a loose end because her family had grown up and left home, was glad to help Janice in the shop.
News of Rosie came at more irregular intervals now. First she was working hard with Miss Barrington and then had moved on to Miss Clarke’s school, St Chide’s. During the next three years she only came for the weekend once.
Rosie then was just on eighteen years old, and to the onlooker there was now certainly no semblance of Rosie of the River. She was tall, five foot seven and a half. She was slim. She had beautiful dark wavy hair. She had a creamy skin, a pair of laughing eyes, and a large well-shaped mouth, and she carried herself like a duchess.
She had stayed a full year with Miss Barrington, and had toured France with her, when she sent them postcards giving her impression of different places, in particular her annoyance at Notre Dame where she had to pay sixpence to get into a room to see the bejewelled vestments of popes and bishops, and gold chalices and salvers, while outside, on the steps, sat the poor and hungry begging for money. Nor was she impressed with Versailles, all those rooms glorified by wealth. No wonder there had been a number of revolutions in the country. She wasn’t, in fact, all that taken with the French although she spoke their language well.
On her visit she was delighted with their home, and didn’t bother that it felt like an icebox after her granny’s large, centrally heated house. What they recalled afterwards of that weekend was how the three of them talked and laughed and became closer still. On leaving, Sally begged her to make visits more often. She did them so much good and she seemed to love them both—and Bill, of course. Oh, yes, Bill.
Sally asked her if it was accidental or on purpose that Miss Barrington had always seemed to make it impossible for her to spend another weekend away from home: they were to tour Germany or Spain, or they were to meet this important person or that one.
Rosie had laughed at this, but nevertheless did not say they were wrong, only that Briggy seemed to know a lot of very influential people who, incidentally, had got her into the Diplomatic Service when she left school in a year’s time, and how could they expect her to answer that question when she was a budding diplomat?
This had set them off into a gale of laughter; she had become once again the girl they remembered, relating a recent event which might have had dire repercussions on her career. And here the Carpenters had to admit to themselves that thankfully Miss Barrington’s presence and influence had smoothed things over.
Rosie had been two years at St Chide’s when the incident happened. Her first year at the school had shown surprising results, all due to Miss Barrington, of course. She had been given an A for her English and a B for Latin, an A for French, a B for German and Bs for history and geography. But she was right at the bottom in painting, drawing and music. However, in spite of this, her progress was sufficient to make her into one of the school’s flyers. In her second year she had got As in English, Latin, French and German and Bs in history, maths and science.
She had written to the Carpenters the day the results were made public, saying it had all been wonderful; the whole family were there to celebrate, she said, the only two missing were Mr and Mrs C.
It was about two months later, at the beginning of an additional third year, that Miss Rosina Stevenson blotted her copybook. And how they laughed as she told them about it, although it might have meant the end of any hopes of a career.
It concerned one Constance Victoria Fordstone-Grey, the last names being hyphenated. On this particular day she was among a clique of girls from her dormitory, five in all, when in Rosie’s hearing she said, ‘They used only to allow decent families here in this school. Things are changing. You used to have to be out of the top drawer.’
Apparently, Rosie had turned to one of the two friends who were walking with her, and said in no small voice, ‘It’s amazing the reproductions that are on the market today.
In the old days anything known as coming out of the top drawer was given one single name, such as a chest or a commode, but now the reproductions, in order to give them some foundation, hyphenate their names. Old English names, especially those in the top drawers, were, as I said, simple names. Of course, the real people know when it’s a reproduction once the fakes open their mouths.’
‘Well,’ cried Miss Constance Victoria Fordstone-Grey, ‘you have done that already, haven’t you?’
‘Me?’ responded Rosie innocently, looking at the other girl, who was almost a head taller than her, with thick brown hair and very muscular legs, squarely in the eye. ‘But I am not out of the top drawer, I’m a very ordinary individual. The only thing is, I happen to be more clever than some people, but just in different ways.’
‘Of course you’re more clever, the daughter of a woman who tried to murder her husband and is now doing ten years in jail for it. And you wouldn’t have been here if it hadn’t been for your father, who is a dirty old man who kept a mistress on the side. Your ancestry was certainly an open book in the papers—reproduction top drawer as may be, but you’re from the gutter, from where Miss Barrington dragged you up and taught you. But for her you would not be here today, because you could not speak even one word of correct English. She hammered it into you for a year, but even so she was unable to hide the slut in you, because that’s all you are, a guttersnipe slut.’
Rosie of the River Page 15
