Rosie

by Lesley Pearse

  Violet smiled. She could remember one of her old boyfriends cycling fifteen miles in the rain to meet her just for a few hours. A young doctor had once courted her from Leeds when she was in London.

  ‘Love can conquer all obstacles,’ she said. ‘Besides, he works for the railways, doesn’t he? Mayfield has a station, and it can’t be more than fifty miles from London.’

  Rosie didn’t need to consider anything more. No job in London could possibly offer as much as what the Cooks were offering her. Gareth might tire of her, she might get bored with him, and then where would she be?

  ‘I do want to work for them,’ she smiled, suddenly imagining being in the country again, digging in a garden and sharing things with Donald. ‘It will be such an adventure. Yes, I do want to go.’

  Violet beamed. ‘That’s the spirit,’ she said stoutly. ‘Now, when had you arranged to see this young man next?’

  ‘Tonight,’ Rosie blushed. She hadn’t expected Miss Pemberton to be so understanding. ‘Will it be all right for me to meet him?’

  ‘Of course it will. And it will work out just perfectly as Mr and Mrs Cook are driving up tomorrow to collect Donald. They’ll be thrilled to find you ready to go with them.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ Rosie gasped. She thought Miss Pemberton meant in a week or two.

  ‘Yes, dear.’ She blinked fast in surprise at Rosie’s question. ‘The Cooks wanted to take Donald away at the first hint of trouble. The only reason they haven’t done so is because I was afraid such action would alert Barnes that something was going on. Now what I suggest is that you leave here tomorrow morning first thing in a taxi, telling anyone who asks you are going home to Somerset. Go to Thomas’s flat and wait there for the Cooks to pick you up later in the day. That way no one here will have any idea where you are going.’

  ‘Have you told the Cooks about me?’ Rosie asked tentatively.

  ‘Only that I came into your life when your father died and arranged for you to work here,’ she said. ‘That is all that is relevant. As for Thomas, who they’ve had a few telephone conversations with, they believe him to be a friend of mine, someone I put you in touch with when you first came to London.’

  ‘Do you think I should tell them all about myself?’ Rosie asked in a small voice.

  ‘I think that has to be ultimately your decision, my dear. But run along now and have your tea before the rest of the staff come off duty. I’m quite sure you’ve had enough for one day.’

  Rosie had had a bath and washed her hair by the time Maureen came upstairs.

  ‘Simmonds said Matron left this afternoon in her brother-in-law’s car,’ she said, sitting down on the bed and glancing over at Rosie sitting at the dressing-table. ‘She said Mr Brace-Coombes left a few minutes afterwards. But then I suppose Sister Pemberton told you all this when you were having your chat in the garden?’

  The sarcasm was laid on with a trowel but Rosie decided not to rise to the bait. ‘No, she didn’t, actually. She only wanted to know what I wanted to do now. Has she said anything to you?’ Rosie was full of excitement and that made her feel a bit sorry for Maureen. She had nothing to look forward to and she seemed so lost and frightened.

  ‘Yes, she said I still had a job if I wanted to stay. But she was a bit frosty. She said I wasn’t to communicate with Matron in any way. As if I would want to.’

  Rosie had the distinct feeling Miss Pemberton had said a great deal more than that, but she wasn’t going to ask. Suddenly the politics in Carrington Hall meant nothing to her.

  ‘It will be much better here now,’ Rosie tried to sound encouraging. ‘Staff Nurse Clegg’s nice, but I don’t think Miss Pemberton will leave you on the second floor.’

  ‘As if you care,’ Maureen said spitefully. ‘I suppose you’re going home to Auntie tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes, I am as a matter of fact,’ she said. ‘And I can’t wait.’

  ‘I don’t think anyone will stay,’ Maureen said and began to cry. ‘Donald’s going home tomorrow with his mum and dad. Mary’s talking about going back to Ireland and Linda said she’s only going to give it a week or two because Clegg is contacting all the patients’ families to tell them what’s happened and she reckons Brace-Coombes will have to close the place down.’

  Rosie was torn between sympathy and wanting to get ready for Gareth, but her sympathy won. ‘Look, Maureen,’ she said, getting up from the dressing-table and going over to sit beside her. She put her arm around Maureen’s shoulder. ‘You must see this as the beginning of something new, and almost certainly better. Why don’t you look around for a new job too, and start all over again where no one knows about anything?’

  ‘It’s all right for you, you’re pretty and clever,’ Maureen sniffled against her shoulder. ‘I’m plain and people don’t like me.’

  ‘No one around here likes me either,’ Rosie shrugged. Neither Linda nor Mary had been up to see her and she didn’t think they were intending to either. ‘And being clever hasn’t got me very far. You’ve still got a job and I haven’t.’

  Once she was out of the front door Rosie breathed a sigh of relief. Today had been long and exhausting and Maureen had just about finished her off.

  But as she walked down to the gates, reality suddenly hit her. She was free. She would never have to clean another dirty bottom, except perhaps a baby’s, she hadn’t ever got to go back on either of the wards again. Tomorrow she would pack her clothes, climb into a taxi and enter a whole new world. Donald wouldn’t be told she was joining him until after he’d left here tomorrow. She couldn’t wait to see his face when his parents called for her in Hampstead. All those things she’d longed to do with him – read books, walk in fields, ride on buses, take him shopping – she could do them all now. It was going to be wonderful.

  Filled with wild excitement, her tiredness forgotten, she raced to the gates, opened them and ran out smiling with happiness. And there, just a few yards along the road, Gareth was sitting on his motorbike waiting for her.

  They didn’t go to the pictures. It was too warm an evening to sit inside in the dark and there was so much to talk about. They drove out into the country and as they walked hand in hand across fields Rosie spilled out all that had happened today, and her part in starting it all. It was such a relief to be able to talk about it. By the time she’d finished she felt as if she’d pulled a plug on a whole bathful of dirty water and watched it drain away.

  ‘I just wish I could have peeped through a window while that old witch was being questioned,’ Rosie giggled. ‘But Miss Pemberton is very discreet, she probably won’t ever tell me the whole story.’

  ‘Fancy you being involved in all this and not saying anything to me.’ Gareth looked at her with an expression approaching awe. He hated the idea of her being near a man like Saunders, he guessed exactly what he’d done to the mad woman, even though Rosemary had only referred to it as ‘interfering with her’. ‘I’d have been out of there on the next bus. I wouldn’t have worried about the patients, only myself.’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ Rosie smiled. It felt so good being admired, it wasn’t something she was used to. ‘Anyway, it’s a good job I didn’t turn tail and run – I wouldn’t have got the job with the Cooks.’

  Gareth was a little confused because he had a set idea in his head about how girls should be and Rosemary wasn’t quite slotting into it. He was glad she was leaving Carrington Hall – he wasn’t comfortable with having a girl working in a loony-bin. He thought the Cooks were nice people, but he couldn’t see for the life of him why she’d want to bury herself in the country looking after Donald. He would get a lot of stick from his mates if anyone found out what she did. Their girls all worked in offices, shops or hairdressers’.

  ‘Are you really sure that’s what you want to do?’ he asked. ‘I know they are nice people. But it’s a long way from London. How will I see you?’

  Rosie thought it was better to act cool. She had read in magazines that men were always keener if they had to d
o all the running.

  ‘Of course it’s what I want to do. And you’re the one who knows all about trains, so I don’t need to tell you how to get there,’ she said teasingly. ‘But I expect you’ll forget me in a few weeks anyway.’

  ‘I won’t,’ he said, pulling her into his arms. ‘I shall be thinking about you night and day, wishing I was with you.’

  When he kissed her a little later, it wasn’t a gentle light kiss like the one when they’d parted on Wednesday night. This time his arms went right around her and his mouth came down on hers hot and hard.

  ‘I really like you,’ he whispered into her neck. ‘I want you for my girl, serious like. I didn’t intend to say anything like this so soon, but now you’re going away I have to. Promise me you’ll write to me?’

  ‘Yes, if you want me to,’ Rosie agreed, thrilled by his words and by the touch of his lips on her neck. ‘I like you too, Gareth. You’re the only thing which makes me feel a bit sad about going.’

  Gareth saw a glimmer of hope. Perhaps she was only going to Sussex because she had nothing else at the moment. Maybe in a few weeks she’d be tired of it and then he could persuade her to come back to London. He imagined helping her find a room somewhere near him in Clapham, taking her out and introducing her to all his mates. He’d be the envy of them all, none of their girls was so pretty.

  He put his arm around her and they walked on until they came to a small copse. ‘Let’s sit down here,’ he suggested.

  Soon, sitting down on the grass and kissing led to lying down, and their kisses grew longer and more passionate. Rosie had often wondered what the attraction was for couples who lay in the parks in one another’s arms for what seemed like for ever. Now she understood. Each kiss grew deeper, Gareth’s tongue probed into her mouth teasingly, and his hands roamed over her back, arms and buttocks, drawing her closer and closer to him.

  When his hand stole to her breast the first time Rosie pushed it away immediately, but soon it became a delicious, teasing game, where his hand would come back, and she’d let it linger there for a second or two before stopping him. But each time he touched her there it was harder to push him away. A hot tingly sensation was taking over her body, and although a small voice right at the back of her mind was whispering that she must break away now and cool down, she didn’t want to listen to it.

  It was Gareth who moved away. ‘This is getting out of control,’ he said in a curiously shaky voice as he sat up and pulled his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket.

  Rosie sat up too, suddenly embarrassed, and pulled her skirt down over her knees. She sat there in uneasy silence for a moment listening to him drawing on the cigarette. Mary had told her that boys wanted only ‘one thing’ and they’d say anything, do anything to get it. Rosie was confused now: why wasn’t Gareth begging her?

  He slid his arm around her and drew her back to his shoulder, kissing her gently on the forehead. ‘You are so lovely, it’s hard to control myself,’ he whispered. ‘But I’m only human, Rosemary. If we keep kissing like that, I might end up going too far, and I’ve got too much respect for you to spoil things like that.’

  All at once Rosie felt secure. Respect was a word which had never been in her father’s or brothers’ vocabulary, not where women were concerned. As Gareth used it, surely that meant he believed in true love and marriage, and that sex only happened once there was a wedding ring on your finger?

  She turned to kiss him, holding his face between her hands. She could feel the words ‘I love you’ forming in her mind, but she knew she mustn’t say them yet, not before he did.

  ‘You will come to see me in Sussex, won’t you?’ she asked instead.

  ‘Just try and stop me,’ he said with an impish grin. ‘It’s far too soon to say this, but I think I’m falling in love with you.’

  Rosie just looked at him, drinking in those clear blue eyes, the golden tone of his skin and the softness of his lips. She had never felt as deliriously happy as this. All the clouds in her life were at last scudding away.

  Chapter Twelve

  Thomas stood back and watched Donald rapturously embracing Rosie in Flask Walk. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, he and Rosie had just returned from lunch in a café up by the heath, and now the Cooks had come to collect Rosie.

  The reunion was very touching. Both Donald and Rosie were crying and laughing at the same time, and Donald looked as if he would squeeze the life out of her. Frank Cook, his arm around his wife, was grinning broadly, obviously thrilled to be taking his son home. Norah’s face was buried in her husband’s big chest, so Thomas couldn’t see if she was crying too, but he was sure she was.

  ‘Come on in for a cup of tea,’ Thomas suggested. Seeing this young man whom Rosie had spoken of so often at last and knowing he was off to a happy new life had brought a lump to his throat.

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Farley,’ Frank’s big voice boomed out, ‘but I think Donald has had almost too much excitement for one day already. If we can just take Rosemary’s belongings, we’ll whisk the pair of them away home.’

  Thomas felt a sudden and irrational pang of jealousy. ‘But you can’t,’ he objected. ‘Surely you can spare a few minutes?’

  Norah Cook let go of her husband, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Frank’s right about him being overexcited.’ Always sensitive to others, Norah had picked up on the tension in Thomas’s voice. She thought perhaps he was nervous of two comparative strangers taking Rosemary away with them, without checking them out first. She found that touching. ‘But this won’t be a goodbye, only an au revoir,’ she said with a smile. ‘You must come down and stay for a weekend with us in Mayfield soon, Thomas. Then we can all get to know each other properly.’

  ‘They’re right.’ Rosie disengaged herself from Donald’s arms and went over to Thomas, taking his hands in hers and looking up into his face. ‘We should get Donald home quickly. And you will come to Mayfield, won’t you?’

  Thomas nodded. He didn’t quite trust himself to speak. Rosie had arrived at the shop this morning just after nine with her luggage, and it was as if a warm, sweet-scented summer breeze swept into the room with her. She was so happy and bubbly; he’d never seen her that way before and it made him feel happy too. They had gone up on to the heath to sit in the sunshine and she’d excitedly spilled out all the events of the day before, and her hopes for the future.

  ‘Just you remember to write to me,’ Thomas finally managed to say. He didn’t know what was the matter with him. ‘Now, let’s get your luggage into the car. Did you bring the gardening book downstairs?’

  Rosie stepped inside the shop. She had left her suitcase and a couple of smaller bags there. Thomas had given her a huge, glossy book about gardening this morning as a going-away present. It was the best present she’d ever had and she couldn’t wait to start reading it. ‘I’ve already put it in my suitcase,’ she said. ‘I can’t thank you enough for it. I’ll read every single word and become a master gardener.’

  She stood on tiptoe then, took his face in both her hands and kissed his cheek. ‘I expect you to have some drawings to show me next time I see you,’ she said in a low voice close to his ear. ‘And find yourself a lady friend!’

  Thomas stood and waved until the Cooks’ Jaguar disappeared out of sight down Haverstock Hill. Then he turned and slowly walked back to the shop. He had a feeling he did know what was wrong with him. Perhaps he did need a shrink after all; thirty-one-year-old men with only one leg didn’t fall for pretty sixteen-year-olds. It was ridiculous and utterly hopeless.

  ‘Do sit back on the seat properly, Donald,’ Norah Cook said with a note of exasperation in her voice. It was two hours since they’d picked up Rosemary, and her hopes that Donald would settle down with her beside him on the back seat were proving to be vain ones. He had wriggled and squirmed the whole way, turning this way and that, and commenting on everything from shops and cows in fields to different cars, and firing questions to the point where Norah felt she
could hardly bear it a moment longer. But now as they grew nearer to Mayfield and he recognized a few landmarks, so his glee had become overpowering. ‘And could you try and be quiet for five minutes?’

  Yet while Donald had grown steadily noisier as the journey progressed, Rosemary had grown quieter. Norah wondered if she was brooding on all the awful scenes of the past ten days, or maybe feeling she’d been railroaded into this job. But she couldn’t ask her now, not in front of Donald.

  Rosie was deep in thought, but she certainly wasn’t dwelling on Carrington Hall. That was one place she never wanted to see or think about again. She had left before nine o’clock this morning with only the briefest of farewells and without even a backward glance. Yet although she felt today was the start of a happy new life, it could well be likened to jumping out of an aeroplane without checking first that she had a parachute strapped to her back.

  Last night she’d lain awake for hours just thinking about Gareth. She liked him so much, but did he really like her enough to come all the way to Mayfield to see her?

  She was concerned too about Thomas and Miss Pemberton. Would they stay in touch as they’d promised? They had no real need to, not now Alan’s future was decided and she was off to a new job, but the events of the last week or so had emphasized the importance of these two people in her life. They were a substitute for family, two people who knew all about her, whose advice, friendship and affection she valued above all else.

  But it was Donald who was her main concern. As he sat wriggling beside her, overexcited, assaulted on all sides by views, sounds and sights he’d been shut away from for so long, she wondered if she was really capable of guiding him through all the potential minefields she knew were waiting out there.

  Life in Carrington Hall had been very regimented and ordered for both of them. At any given time of the day they both knew exactly what was expected of them. There were no decisions to make, they lived by strict rules.