Cherrybrook Rose

by Tania Crosse

  She flicked her head as if tossing out the unwelcome thought, kicked the hem of her riding skirt out of the way of her strong, athletic legs, and marched through the gateway of the barracks compound. She braced herself against the coming onslaught from the Cartwright family, and then stepped across the yard, greeting people as she went. A woman was lugging a basket overflowing with laundry to the little hexagonal wash-house in the centre of the compound which served the hundred or more families who were crowded into the eleven barracks. Children too young to attend the new prison officers’ school – built and maintained, it went without saying, by convict labour – played safely outside in the sunshine, amongst them the youngest of the Cartwright clan. The wife of one of the twenty-four Civil Guards, younger, fitter men who were all housed in Number Six barracks, was leaning against a wall, her stomach jutting with her first child, as she chatted to a neighbour. Rose hailed them all as she passed, and then bound up the outside steps to the humble dwelling in Number Seven barracks.

  The small front room was a jumble of garments and linen, for Molly and her mother were tackling the weekly mountain of ironing, taking it in turns to do the ironing itself whilst the other folded the pressed articles and hung them over the wooden slats of the airing rack which would later be hoisted to the ceiling. The air was heavy with warmth and moisture, a strange mix of the freshness of ironing and the acrid smell of the peat fire that smouldered in the small grate where the two spare irons were reheating whilst Mrs Cartwright used the third.

  ‘Oh, Rose! How lovely to see you!’

  Molly’s naturally pale cheeks were flushed with the afternoon’s activity and she pushed back a wayward wisp of light ginger hair that had escaped from beneath the plain white muslin cap on her head. Her small but well-shaped mouth broke into a grin, and above it, her eyes, a distinct feline green, danced with delight.

  ‘Well,’ Rose replied with an exaggerated tilt of her head, ‘I’d not seen you for a week and I wanted to make certain you were behaving yourself.’

  A faint smile lifted Mrs Cartwright’s work-worn face at their irrepressible visitor, but with eight mouths to feed and the apparel of eight bodies to launder, she had no time to stop and chat. But Rose always brought a breath of fresh air into their humdrum lives, and was always welcome. Besides, she was a lady, and perhaps one day some practical advantage might come of their association and lift Molly from the drab future she faced at present.

  Molly’s lips, however, twisted into a mock grimace. ‘Behave myself!’ she groaned. ‘And what chance d’you imagine I’d have to do ort else?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know! Perhaps one of the new Civil Guards?’ Rose teased. ‘There’s one particularly attractive fellow . . . Why don’t we walk down to the quarry and see if he’s on duty there?’

  ‘Oh, Rose, you’m a real devil!’ Molly chuckled. ‘But I cas’n. Look at this pile of ironing! The girls’ll be home from school directly, and we must get it finished by then.’

  ‘Let me help, then.’ And throwing her riding gloves on to the bed Molly shared with the elder two of her three younger sisters, Rose unfastened the jacket of her riding habit, tossed it on top of the gloves and rolled up the sleeves of her shirt. ‘Now, what can I do? Or would it be more use to you if I started preparing the meal?’

  Mrs Cartwright shook her head. That was Rose for you! Heart as big as the ocean. And it wasn’t an empty gesture. The girl knew how to cook, sew and iron, and would work as hard as any of them. And so it was that by the time the three younger siblings arrived back from school the laundry was stowed away on the airing rack, Rose had rescued little Philip from the compound and cleaned him up and a pile of bread and dripping was waiting on the table next to a heap of vegetables prepared by Rose’s hand ready for the cooking pot for supper. She supervised the tea, entertained the children and helped wash up, while Mrs Cartwright sat with her feet up, sipping the hot brew from a chipped enamel mug. So that by five o’clock the two young women were able to set out, arm in arm, down the road towards Rundlestone.

  Work on the new accommodation block would soon be stopping for the night, and Molly paused to glance ruefully at its progress. ‘I do hope as we gets one of they flats!’ she breathed with feeling, her full breasts rising and falling in a deep sigh. ‘’Tis so cramped in the barracks and we’re all getting so big.’

  Rose looked askew at her friend, her heart torn. It was hard to know quite what to say. She felt so sorry for the Cartwright family, but she didn’t want to offend. ‘What about Brian? Could he not be moving out soon? He is sixteen.’

  Molly cocked an eyebrow. ‘Too old to be sleeping on the floor in the same room as mesel and Annie and Emma, you mean? I’ll not disagree with you there! Though he’s usually so tired arter his work, he sleeps like a log. But Annie’s got a live-in position down in Yelverton so she’ll be stopping school, so at least ’twill be one less squeezed into the bed. It shoulda been me really, being the eldest girl, going into service. But I’ve always been needed at home, and it sort of stayed that way.’

  ‘And I’m so glad it did!’ Rose beamed at her, patting her friend’s arm. Their eyes met, Molly’s a glistening emerald whilst Rose’s softened to lavender, the bond between the two girls ever deepening.

  They had inadvertently stopped to look at the growing walls of the building, and as if of one mind, continued on their walk. It might not do to stop too long. The two pretty young women had already attracted the silent attention of more than one prisoner, and that could cause trouble. And so they stepped out briskly, their eyes averted, as they approached the gaol itself. But, familiar as they were with its grey, stone severity, neither could help glancing at the forbidding complex and the prison farmland that stretched out behind it as far as the eye could see. Within the horseshoe-shaped outer wall, the cell blocks radiated like the spokes of a half-wheel, an ominous backdrop to the workshops, hospital and lesser buildings at the front of the compound. Over them all towered the massive Number Five Prison, the first of the original prisoner-of-war blocks to be rebuilt as a five-storey monster with regimented rows of small barred windows in its unyielding walls. Constructed by convicts with stone from the quarry, it had only opened two years previously, and yet they knew from Molly’s father that damp was already seeping into some of the three hundred unheated cells, and prisoners who had been moved there from the old buildings – which had been converted internally with dry, iron cells – wished they were back in their former abode, grim as it was.

  Rose shivered as they passed the main gate, for even her own comfortable home with its blazing fires could be cold in the depths of the long Dartmoor winter. She squared her slim shoulders. It had been a glorious autumn day; she should enjoy it whilst she could, and put such dark thoughts aside.

  ‘Amber’s still behaving like a lunatic,’ she began anew. ‘She’s very obedient and willing to learn, but the instant anything exciting happens, like a rabbit or something, she forgets everything I’ve taught her and won’t obey a single command!’

  Molly’s face lit up at the mention of Rose’s young dog, far more of a pet in her opinion than the fearsome Gospel, of whom, like most other people, she was petrified. ‘But she’s only a puppy, Rose! You cas’n expect her—’

  ‘She’s nearly a year old. She should be able to contain herself by now. I want to be able to take her out riding with me.’

  ‘What! And frighten everyone even more than you does already with that monster you calls an ’orse!’

  Rose blinked her eyes wide, and then the pair of them fell about laughing as they wandered on down the road. As their merriment subsided, they paused again to gaze on the sheer immensity of the landscape, the prison lands that had been cleared and drained under cultivation to some hardy crop, while sheep or cattle grazed in other fields. And yet what they could see was merely a small patch of the three hundred and sixty or more square miles of spectacular scenery, exposed, rugged hills with impressive outcrops of granite tors, or pretty valleys and shel
tered pockets of fertile farmland that made up Dartmoor. A hostile wilderness, and yet a luring sense of peace and infinity . . .

  ‘Get along there, you, six four nine!’

  Molly flicked her head with surprised pleasure. ‘’Tis Father’s voice. He must’ve been on duty at the quarry today. That’ll have pleased ’en no end.’

  They both turned instinctively to peer down over the low but solid stone wall on their right. Behind them, on the opposite side of the road, was the entrance to the heavily guarded prison quarry, but to avoid the inmates marching down a public road to and from the place of their labour, a tunnel passed beneath the highway, emerging on the other side on to prison farmland and a well-trodden track that entered the gaol by a side gateway in the massive wall. The day’s back-breaking toil was over, and sure enough, a line of weary convicts, some – the least trustworthy – chained together with heavy leg irons, were dragging themselves back towards the comfortless buildings that would swallow up their very existence until it began all over again the following day. The track was some twenty feet immediately below the two girls, who watched from their vantage point, entirely unseen.

  The line of men in their ugly uniforms and forage caps on their closely cropped heads was lengthening as they were marched out of the tunnel accompanied by several armed guards and even more prison warders, amongst them Molly’s father. Jacob Cartwright had worked since a boy in the Dartmoor quarries, his skill and experience gaining him a respected position as the years went by. That was how Rose and Molly had originally met, when Jacob had come to Cherrybrook to order gunpowder for quarry blasting, and for some reason had brought Molly with him. But he wasn’t getting any younger, and some time ago had decided, like other of his colleagues, that being a prison warder would be more suitable employment for a man of more mature years. The Governor had to be careful who he employed, and Jacob fitted the bill admirably: a strong, sturdy local, experienced in directing strong-willed men, and of course his expertise in quarrying was invaluable. He was a fair and just warder, popular with the inmates, for though he would deal toughly with those who deserved it, he was one of the few who found room in his own strictly regulated role to reward good behaviour with clemency and understanding.

  He hurried along now, his sharp eye ever watchful, unaware of his eldest daughter and her friend looking immediately down upon him. The girls would not utter a sound, of course, for they knew his concentration must not be distracted for one second. It filled them both with unimaginable horror, therefore, when one of the convicts behind him swiftly picked up a heavy stone that happened by some oversight to be lying by the side of the track, and went to smash it over his head.

  The scream lodged in Molly’s throat, her suddenly weak and trembling knees buckling under her, whilst at her side, Rose’s jaw hung open in appalled disbelief. But in that terrible moment, another prisoner bounded forward and in a brief struggle plied the weapon from his fellow inmate’s grasp. Before Jacob Cartwright could turn round to investigate the scuffle behind him, two Civil Guards emerged from the tunnel and, spying the second convict with the rock still in his raised hands, rushed at him with a lustful cry. One of them slammed the butt of his Snider carbine into the man’s stomach. He fell to the ground, dropping the stone, totally defenceless against the two guards, who became intent upon kicking him into submission with their steel-capped boots.

  Molly remained motionless, her muscles incapable of doing anything more than keeping her upright, but beside her, the indignation swirled in Rose’s breast like a rising tide, drowning her senses in unleashed fury. In a trice, she flung aside her riding skirt, vaulted the stone wall and careering down the steep bank, began to pummel the back of one of the guards.

  ‘No, you senseless fools!’ she shrieked, spittle spraying from her incensed lips. ‘’Twasn’t him! He stopped the other one!’

  Her fists continued to pound ineffectually at their target, and it wasn’t until Jacob’s arms encircled her, pinning her own to her sides, that she was forced to stop, though she wriggled like a mad woman, her hat flying from her head and her dark curls whipping across her face like some wild witch.

  ‘Hush now, Miss Rose!’ the strong, steady voice commanded. ‘And you two, stop before you kill ’en, will you!’

  His authoritative tone ran like ice through the guards’ brains as they ceased their retribution with reluctance. Every man held his breath, his heartbeat quickened, as the tension crackled along the halted line, those that were near enough confounded by the savage but beautiful apparition that even now was desperately attempting to break free from the burly warder’s hold, her chest heaving deliciously up and down.

  ‘Is this true?’ Jacob asked in his usual calm manner.

  ‘Yes. Of course ’tis!’ Rose told him. ‘He was the one who was about to hit you over the head with the stone!’ she accused, pointing at the guilty villain, who merely grinned back. ‘That poor fellow stopped him, and those idiots—’

  ‘All right, all right!’ Jacob tried to interrupt.

  ‘We saw it all from up there! Ask any one of these men—’

  ‘Rose, do calm down!’ Jacob hissed warningly in her ear. ‘Never ask a prisoner to cop another! Now!’ He raised his voice again as he turned back to the guards, slowly releasing his grip on her as he did so. ‘I believe what this young woman says. Six four nine’s always been a troublemaker. I’d just that second had to rebuke ’en. The other fellow’s new. Model prisoner, so far. So, all right, everyone! Show’s over! Move along now!’

  A general moan rumbled along the line of convicts as they began to trudge back towards their meagre evening meal, an hour of oakum-picking and an hour of reading or writing in their cells, or if they weren’t literate under the prison teacher’s tuition, before lights out. It had been a rare entertainment, and that untamed, spirited wench . . .

  ‘Yes, get up, you bastard.’

  Jacob had already moved on and didn’t see the final blow that one of the guards inflicted with his boot upon the prostrate form of the prisoner. But Rose did, and the soldier’s shin felt the crack of her own foot as she lashed out at him, her blazing eyes deepening to an outraged indigo. He backed away. He had the feeling he’d seen her somewhere before. She was dressed like a lady in a riding habit, and although she spoke with a local accent, it was refined, and her words were well chosen and articulate. You never knew . . . And he didn’t want any trouble.

  With a scathing glance in her direction, he bent down to thrust a hand under the criminal’s armpit and drag him to his feet. The convict stifled a gasp of pain, one arm clutched across his middle, but he lifted his head and turned to look at his saviour.

  The tortured expression on his face was like a spike in her compassionate heart. He was young. At least, fine creases were only just beginning to radiate from the outer corners of his clear hazel eyes, so she imagined he could be no more than thirty. It was difficult to tell exactly, for though his cap had been knocked from his head, his hair had been clipped so closely the scissors had grazed his scalp in places, but a cap of light down was just visible here and there. A trickle of blood was curling down his chin from his torn lip, but the pained shadow of a smile twitched at his mouth and his gaze held hers until the other guard cuffed him about the ear and forced him to stumble onwards.

  Rose stood and watched as the rest of the work party was marched past, a strange knot frozen solid in her chest as she fought her way back to reality. A convict. Guilty of some heinous crime. Ah, well . . . He must deserve to be incarcerated in Dartmoor’s infamous gaol. Put to some of the most gruelling toil known to man, treated like the scum of the earth. The quarry was probably the most feared and hated of prison work. Not a moment’s rest was allowed from the strenuous, crushing labour. Serious accidents were frequent, no care given to the prisoners’ safety – except if Warder Cartwright was on duty, for he could not find it in his Christian soul to allow even a convicted felon to be maimed if he could help it. Others were less mindful and as
well as paying no heed to other dangers in the quarry would order convicts to pick out by hand any unexploded charges. It was not uncommon for a hapless villain to be blinded or have his hand blown away when the powder went off belatedly.

  A whimper scraped from Rose’s lungs. And she somehow prayed that the prisoner – whoever he was, but who had possibly saved Jacob’s life – never suffered such a tragedy.

  She buried the sickening thought somewhere deep in the darkest recesses of her passionate young mind, and retrieving her hat from amongst the grass at the side of the track, scrambled back up the slope to where Molly was waiting.

  Two

  For once, Rose Maddiford held in check the colossal steed on whose back she rode. It was no mean feat, for the creature was strong and possessed a will of iron. But so did Rose. She kept the reins short in her gloved hands and low down on either side of the gleaming black neck, for she refused to use what she considered the cruel martingale the previous owner had admitted was the only way he could control the beast. She could feel the power now in Gospel’s clenched haunches, and she only needed to let her concentration slip for a second before the horse started to pick up its front legs and dance sideways in an effort to escape from Rose’s tight constraint. But Rose was not in the mood for their usual mad gallop as they left Princetown behind.

  The incident by the quarry tunnel had thrown her senses into some strange confusion. Molly had been like a quivering jelly, wanting to return home at once. It had taken every ounce of Rose’s ingenuity to persuade her to complete what was known as the ‘triangle’, down to the small settlement at Rundlestone, along a stretch of the main highway that cut right across Dartmoor from east to west and finally back up to the prison village via Two Bridges Road, the very same Gospel’s hooves were treading now in the opposite direction. Think how your mother will worry if you tell her your father nearly had his head split open by a convict, Rose had argued. Of course, she had been upset, too, for she was fond of Mr Cartwright, but there was something else that had gripped her heart with a violence that astounded her. The unmerited beating the prisoner had received at the hands – or more precisely, the feet – of the guards had sickened her, but even more than that, when the fellow had looked straight into her eyes, she had felt a curious and unwanted pull on her innermost feelings. He was a convicted criminal, guilty of some appalling act to warrant incarceration in the dreaded Dartmoor gaol, and yet the vision of his anguished face was haunting her.