Rosie

by Lesley Pearse

  Rosie didn’t know what to say.

  Norah came over and nudged her husband away from Rosie. Without saying a word she pulled her into her arms and hugged her tightly, rocking her against her shoulder as if Rosie was a small child.

  Norah could remember reading about Cole Parker’s trial. If she was entirely honest, had she known his daughter was working at Carrington Hall she would have been outraged. But as Frank had pointed out so very clearly, Rosie had earned their affection and respect. She deserved their protection now.

  Frank cleared his throat. He wasn’t by nature an emotional man, nor one who found it easy to speak about his feelings. But as he looked across at his wife embracing this young slip of a girl who had never had the kind of happy childhood his children had known, his heart went out to her.

  ‘We both love you, Rosie. Love you, just as you are, with whatever baggage has come with you,’ he said gruffly. ‘You aren’t responsible for your father’s deeds. You are your own person, a warm, loving human being. If we have anything at all to say about this, it’s only to ask why you couldn’t have taken us into your confidence before.’

  ‘I was afraid to,’ she whimpered against Norah’s shoulder.

  ‘Well, you’ll never need to be afraid again,’ Norah said, and letting go of Rosie she mopped the girl’s cheeks with a handkerchief. ‘I kind of guessed your father was a brute. I’m just sorry I didn’t press you harder about him.’

  As she moved away to put the kettle on, Rosie knew she must voice her suspicions about her brother. ‘I really hope I’m wrong,’ she said bleakly as she came to the end, ‘but suppose Seth did go to them to try and find me? He always had a terrible temper, with no respect for women.’

  Frank looked at Norah’s horrified face, then back to Rosie’s stricken one. He barely remembered the Parkers’ trial. Every day the newspapers had been full of sensational stories and neither he nor his wife was the kind to revel in ghoulish news. All he really recalled of the case was that the father was hanged and the son acquitted, and he had great faith in the British legal system. ‘I can’t see any logical reason why your brother should go to such lengths. Saunders is a far more likely candidate,’ he said evenly. ‘What could Seth want from you that’s important enough to kill for?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Rosie said. ‘But logic wasn’t a word he ever understood, and I’ve just got this nasty feeling about it.’

  Talking to the police wasn’t anywhere near as terrible as Rosie had expected. Frank knew both the officers who called and he stayed with her for support throughout the interview, speaking for her when she broke down. The two policemen were clearly astounded to hear she was Cole Parker’s daughter and even more surprised when she put forward her brother’s name as a suspect. But though they said they would check him out, they appeared far more interested in hearing about Saunders. Like Frank Cook, they were of the opinion he had nursed a grudge against the two women since he was thrown out of Carrington Hall.

  After the police had gone Frank took Donald out in his car. Donald had been very curious about them calling and his father wanted to distract him, at the same time giving his wife and Rosie time to talk alone.

  ‘Rosie, I really think you must tell Gareth all you told us if he phones you this evening,’ Norah said as they prepared the vegetables for the evening meal. She looked agitated, chopping up carrots as if taking out her anxiety on them. ‘Your name just might be leaked to the papers now that the police will be looking for your brother. It would be so very cruel for him to find it out that way.’

  ‘I can’t tell him something like that on the phone!’ Rosie exclaimed. Gareth always used a telephone box and she could just imagine people tapping on the glass asking him to hurry up as she was telling him her life story.

  ‘I didn’t actually mean over the phone, rather that you insist he comes down here immediately, or say you are going up there. I’m sure Thomas would put you up for the night if necessary. By the way, does he know anything about this?’

  ‘Yes, all of it,’ Rosie said, and explained that he was Heather’s brother, and how he’d befriended her after Cole was arrested.

  Norah abandoned the vegetables, listening with wide, incredulous eyes, but as Rosie finally told her about Alan’s adoption, she began to cry. ‘What a good, generous-hearted man he is,’ she wept. ‘I had always felt there was something more between you two, and that evening when we heard the news about Miss Pemberton I had a feeling you were sharing a secret. But I’d never have guessed at anything like this.’

  Thomas rang after hearing of Barnes’s murder on the six o’clock news. He too was shaken, and like Frank he immediately suspected Saunders. Rosie poured out everything to him: how she’d had to tell the Cooks, the talk with the police and her suspicions about Seth.

  ‘I’m so glad you’ve made a clean breast of everything,’ he said, and admitted that after he’d returned to London he’d felt he ought to have encouraged her to tell the Cooks while he was still there. He didn’t pooh-pooh her thoughts about Seth entirely. ‘It strikes me as unlikely,’ he said. ‘But I did form the opinion watching him in court that he was a dangerous man without any scruples. You did right to put his name forward.’

  Thomas agreed she must tell Gareth quickly before he heard it from another source. ‘Scotland Yard don’t pussy-foot about where murder’s concerned,’ he said sharply. ‘By now they will have issued an all-points alert to bring both Saunders and Seth in for questioning. You can bet your life that by tomorrow both their pictures will be on every front page, and that’s bound to mean your father’s case will get hashed over again. I wish I could promise you that the police will shield you, Rosie, but I’m afraid I can’t.’

  Rosie began to cry. She could go to London now, but Gareth would almost certainly have gone out with his mates long before she got there. Tomorrow might be too late.

  ‘Suppose I went over to his digs and told him?’ Thomas suggested because she was so worried. ‘If I left now, I could catch him when he comes in from work. As a third party who knows all sides to this I could probably present a better case for why you’ve kept this from him than you could yourself.’

  Rosie saw this as a sound idea, if a little cowardly on her part. But even if she did leave this minute and managed to catch Gareth in, he wasn’t the most sensitive or understanding of men, and was quite likely to bawl her out without listening properly. Thomas was good with people and Gareth would be forced to hear him out.

  ‘Do you think you can bear to?’ she asked. She knew it was still a painful subject for him too.

  ‘Rosie, I can bear anything for you,’ he said with a smile in his voice. ‘Just give me his address.’

  At half past seven that same evening Gareth answered the knock on his door and grinned broadly to find Thomas standing there. ‘What a surprise, mate!’ he said. ‘What brings you round here?’

  Thomas noted immediately that Gareth was ready to go out. He was wearing smart navy blue slacks and a crisp white shirt and he smelled of soap.

  ‘Sorry to come uninvited, but there’s something we must talk about,’ Thomas said. ‘It’s about Rosie and it’s very important.’

  Gareth looked at his watch. ‘I’m meeting the lads in half an hour,’ he said. ‘Is it going to take long?’

  Thomas’s hackles rose. He’d already said it was important. ‘It might,’ he said, and edged himself into the small room before Gareth found another excuse.

  Jealousy was an emotion that Thomas both despised and refused to succumb to, and in all the time he had known Gareth he had tried to be scrupulously honest with himself about whether it was jealousy which prevented him from taking to the lad. Yet right from the start Thomas had found Gareth to be shallow and limited in his conversation.

  In the last eighteen months, however, he had become very pompous and opinionated. Thomas could see it now in his face: he’d put on weight, he had a permanent sneer, and his eyes were cold and suspicious. He just couldn’t like him, no
t even for Rosie’s sake.

  ‘Have you seen the news about Freda Barnes being murdered?’ he asked.

  ‘Who?’ Gareth asked, looking baffled.

  ‘The woman they’ve just found dead in Camden Town.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Gareth nodded and grinned. ‘What’s that to you?’

  ‘She was the matron at Carrington Hall,’ Thomas explained.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Gareth’s eyes opened wider with interest.’That’s a bit of a coincidence, two people getting killed that Rosie knows.’

  ‘I think it’s more than coincidence.’ Thomas sat down on the bed. He didn’t think Gareth was ever going to offer him a seat. ‘There’s a possibility that the killer could be after Rosie.’

  Thomas knew it was callous of him to launch into the story with such a dramatic and possibly untrue statement, but he felt he had to grab the lad’s attention.

  It worked. Gareth sat down on the chair with a thump. But why?’

  Thomas warned Gareth that what he was going to tell him was likely to upset him and asked only that he should hear him out until he’d finished.

  Gareth didn’t interrupt, but as the story progressed his eyes narrowed and his colour heightened; even his neck turned red. ‘Why didn’t she tell me herself?’ he burst out angrily as Thomas finished. ‘If this hadn’t cropped up, would she have married me without telling me?’

  Thomas thought Gareth’s priorities were misplaced. He would have expected his first reaction to be for Rosie’s safety. ‘I don’t think so. She was waiting for the right moment,’ he said gently.

  ‘The right time was when she first met me.’

  ‘Come on!’ Thomas exclaimed. ‘Could any girl say, “Yes, I’d love to go out with you, but I must just tell you first my father’s a murderer.” Be reasonable, Gareth. And it got progressively harder for her to tell you as time went on.’

  Gareth was clearly incapable of reason as he launched into a volley of accusatory remarks about how his family would feel, his workmates and even his employers.

  Thomas cut him short. ‘I thought you loved Rosie?’

  ‘I do,’ Gareth glowered.

  ‘Well, how about showing some concern for what she’s been through?’ Thomas said. ‘She never had a real childhood. From the age of twelve she kept house for her father and brothers, and she was mother to my little nephew. She had no life of her own, no friends or fun. Then suddenly, without any warning, she finds her father is a murderer. From then on, through no fault of her own, she is an outcast. No home, no rights, no one at all aside from Violet Pemberton cares a jot about her. I know how it was for her back then, until she went to work for the Cooks, and I can tell you, Gareth, the life she had would give you and me nightmares.

  ‘But she didn’t sit about feeling sorry for herself, she used the talents she had to make something of herself. And look what she’s done with them! The Cooks would have been content if she’d just kept Donald out of mischief, but she’s taught him to read, to do sums, given him some self-respect, and freed his parents from anxiety about him. She’s started the gardening business and made a huge success of that. Is it any wonder that she’s won the respect and admiration of the entire village? Aside from all that, she’s one of the kindest, pluckiest girls I’ve ever met. You are a lucky man, Gareth, to have such a girl.’

  ‘It’s easy for you to stick up for her, you knew the truth about her all along,’ Gareth said stubbornly.

  ‘So it’s easier for me to see good in a girl whose father murdered my sister in cold blood, than for you who fell in love with her, is it?’ Thomas spat at him. ‘I’ll tell you why I stick up for her: it’s because she’s a very special person. Whoever named her Rosie named her well. She’s risen out of that pile of manure she was born into and become something beautiful. If you can’t see that, then there’s something badly wrong with you.’

  Now that Thomas had worked himself up he couldn’t stop. He told Gareth how Rosie had got Alan away from May Cottage, and then went into graphic details of the beating Seth gave her. He described the full horror of what Rosie had witnessed at Carrington Hall and got a certain pleasure from seeing the younger man’s face blanch.

  ‘She didn’t tell you these things either,’ he went on. ‘Maybe she’d have aroused your sympathy if she had. But trying to wring sympathy out of people isn’t Rosie’s way. You think you’re such a big tough man, Gareth, but you’re just a worm really. You’re afraid of the most harmless thing in life – other people’s opinions. If you want to know what true courage is, ask Rosie. She’s an expert on it.’

  Thomas got up then. He knew he’d gone too far and if he stayed any longer he might just throw a punch or two.

  ‘I’m going now. All I ask is that you carefully think over what I’ve told you and weigh up for yourself whether or not you can accept Rosie’s background. If you find you can’t, be a man and tell her so.’

  As Thomas walked back down the dingy street to the station, tears rolled down his cheeks. He was ashamed of himself for being so hard on Gareth. He should have been more kindly, more persuasive. Had he been cruel just because he was in love with Rosie himself?

  Thomas had often tried to chart the moment when his affection and admiration for Rosie had turned to real adult love. There was no doubt in his mind that the seeds were sown when he saw her courage at Carrington Hall, but it wasn’t until he felt compelled to begin sketching again that he sensed her real importance in his life.

  Those first few sketches were all of Rosie. Yet as he drew her, so he drew on her strength too, and soon he was looking around him, suddenly hungry for new inspiration and challenges. He’d bought an easel, oils and canvases, and painted furiously until the early hours of the morning. Scenes from his childhood, Singapore and Burma, and for each completed one he knew he had Rosie to thank for showing him the key to unlock all those memories, good and bad, and giving him much longed-for inner peace.

  Perhaps it was inevitable that he should fall in love with the person who had brought back his old spirit. He’d learned to laugh again, to enjoy company, to look forward instead of backwards with bitterness. He wondered sometimes where such love would lead him. He was fifteen years older than her, he had a peg leg and thinning hair. He had as much chance of making her love him as having his old leg grafted back on. But as long as he could be just a small part of her life, it was enough.

  The following evening at nine, the telephone rang at The Grange and Rosie rushed from the sitting-room, where she was watching television with the family, into the hall to answer it. To her disappointment it was for Frank, and she went back to tell him.

  After he had gone out of the room Norah patted the seat beside her for Rosie to sit down. ‘I’m sure Gareth will phone,’ she said. ‘He’s probably just sorting out his thoughts before he speaks to you.’

  ‘I think he’s already done that,’ Rosie said, and a tear trickled down her cheek. ‘If he cared for me at all he would have rung me the minute Thomas left him. I bet he went over to see his precious mother and asked her opinion.’

  Mrs Cook thought this was probably very true. But she couldn’t bring herself to say so. ‘If he is influenced more by others than by his heart, then maybe he isn’t the one for you, Rosie. But give him time, he may just be in shock.’

  Donald had been quietly sitting in a chair throughout this, but when he saw Rosie’s tears he got up and came to kneel in front of her. ‘I’ll look after you,’ he said. ‘You don’t need Gareth.’

  Rosie began to cry harder. Donald didn’t really understand what was happening. His mother had tried to explain, as you would to a child, that Rosie’s father had done something very bad a long time ago and Gareth was cross with her because she hadn’t told him. But that wasn’t really enough to satisfy him. They had all avoided speaking of the two murders in his presence, but he had heard a few snippets here and there and was intensely curious.

  ‘You mustn’t cry,’ he said, putting one hand on her cheek and wiping away t
he tears. ‘It doesn’t matter if Gareth isn’t here with you. If that bad man comes here, I won’t let him hurt you.’

  Until now all Rosie’s anxieties had been centred on Gareth and everyone else she knew, wondering how they would react on discovering who her father was. Yet deep down, almost in her subconscious, she had sensed she was in danger, and that was why she needed Gareth so desperately. She hadn’t voiced that to anyone, she had squashed it each time it tried to rear its ugly head.

  It was odd that Donald, who couldn’t possibly comprehend the complexities of past and recent events, had put his finger right on the crux of the matter.

  The next morning Rosie picked up the newspaper from the doormat and saw pictures of Seth and Saunders on the front page. The headline was HAVE YOU SEEN EITHER OF THESE MEN? She took it straight into the kitchen and handed it to Frank, who was eating his breakfast. ‘I can’t bring myself to read it,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Will you tell me the gist of it?’

  He half smiled and patted her arm. ‘Sit down and have a cup of tea,’ he said.

  Norah was in her dressing-gown, frying bacon at the stove. She had dark circles around her eyes as if she’d had a sleepless night. Donald was still upstairs. ‘Tell her quickly before Donald comes down,’ she said, looking anxiously at her husband.

  Rosie poured herself a cup of tea and topped up Frank’s too. She waited while he read the front page.

  ‘There’s nothing much new,’ he said, folding it back so the front page wouldn’t show. ‘Just a rehash really of everything they’ve already said and that the police want to question the two men. A paragraph about Saunders; it seems he has a record of violence. There’s a bit about your father too. But there isn’t any mention of you.’

  Frank was glad Rosie hadn’t read it herself. It was a hysterical piece of journalism guaranteed to make half the population run to bolt their doors against the killer on the loose. Yet it made him wonder whether his own house was secure enough, and if indeed he dared go off to his office until one or both of these men were found. But that was foolish. For one thing, there was no positive proof either of the men had murdered the two women. And if one of them had, would they be stupid enough to come here, knowing the police were looking for them?