Cherrybrook Rose

by Tania Crosse

  Rose nodded her head, but a painful lump squeezed her gullet. ‘What shall I do without him, Florrie?’ she could hardly mouth.

  ‘What shall we all do without him?’ Florrie’s fat, wet cheeks wobbled.

  She drew up the other chair and sat by Rose’s side. They exchanged not another word. They had no need of it, both lost in a private world of sadness that admitted no intruders. The fire hissed in the grate, the clock ticked on the mantelpiece, echoing in the hushed room, and the dogs slept together on the hearth rug, Scraggles making tiny squeaking sounds as he dreamt of chasing some fleet rabbit.

  Charles came in with the promised lemonade. They all stirred, including the dogs. Even Henry groaned in the bed, his eyes opening in a confused daze. Rose sprang to his side, her eyes spangled with unshed tears.

  ‘Father?’

  ‘Ah, my dearest Rose.’ The agitation flowed from his face as his vision focused on his beloved daughter, and in its place a supreme calm seemed to smooth out the lines in his skin.

  ‘We were just having some of Cook’s lemonade. Would you like some?’

  For a moment, she thought she would break at the normality of the question, but Henry managed a weak smile. ‘’Twon’t be as good as Florrie’s, but yes, I should like some. If you can sit me up . . .’

  Florrie, leaning over Rose’s shoulder, went to assist him as Rose already had the heavy glass jug in her hands, and as Florrie’s strong arms went about him, there was a look passed between them that Rose had never noticed before, and it filled her with a cruel joy. Had there been more between her father and their housekeeper than she had ever realized? Some sort of understanding that had brought them happiness all those years? It tore at Rose’s heart, for she hoped so, but it would mean parting would be so much the worse.

  Charles had gone to the other side of the bed to help, and Henry turned his tired eyes on his son-in-law. ‘You will look after them, won’t you?’

  Charles nodded gravely. ‘Of course.’ There was no more said, and Rose poured some of the refreshing liquid into the feeding jug and held the spout to Henry’s lips. But he had only taken a sip before he indicated he wanted no more, and Rose replaced the little jug on the bedside table.

  ‘Would you like me to stay?’ Charles whispered in her ear.

  Rose could hardly bear to turn to him. At this appalling time, she should want to lean on her husband, on the man she was supposed to love, but she couldn’t. She didn’t love him, and that was what she needed, and so it was better to face this alone. With Florrie, who knew her better than she knew herself.

  ‘No. ’Tis all right,’ she smiled sweetly, cutting his heart for he knew hers was breaking.

  ‘I’ll just be in the drawing room,’ he breathed back.

  The ache that clawed at Rose’s throat prevented her from replying, and Charles slipped quietly out of the room. The dogs followed him, their claws clicking softly on the wooden floorboards as they passed the edge of the luxurious carpet. They had had enough of the tense atmosphere and the smell of death.

  Henry took a deep breath and winced. Rose leapt to her feet. ‘Do you want some laudanum?’

  Henry’s eyes misted with love. ‘No. Not yet. ’Tis not so bad if I don’t move. I should like to spend some time with my daughter. And my dear Florrie.’

  He gave the older woman that special smile again, and this time it brought a certain peace to Rose’s soul. They had been so happy together, the three of them. For more than twenty-two years. Without Florrie, it just wouldn’t have been the same.

  They spoke of the past. Of distant memories. Tears and laughter, ending in wistful smiles. A good life. But one that was to be curtailed by possibly twenty years, though no one said so, because of a granule of grit that had somehow found its way into the mixing trough. The room was quiet, stilled, their voices low and bitter-sweet. Trembling with a lifetime of deepest love. Henry was tiring, and though he tried to conceal it, Rose knew that the morphine had worn off, and the pain in his chest was agonizing, but still he refused the laudanum. She knew why.

  Dr Power arrived at seven o’clock, picking his way in the darkness along the now familiar route on his trusty mare, but it was a clear moonlit evening, and the first heavy frost of the waning year pinched the night air. His greeting when he entered the bedroom was that of a friend, rubbing his cold hands as he held them out to the warmth of the fire. He spoke in his usual calm and reassuring manner, telling them of the bitter weather and apologizing for his delayed arrival due to some problem at the prison. Kind and warm-hearted, but what did Rose care of what was happening beyond the four walls of the house?

  He took Henry’s pulse, extricated the stethoscope from his bag to listen to his patient’s chest. Henry’s eyes were clouded with pain, and the doctor frowned. ‘I think you’re ready for the morphine,’ he said gently.

  ‘Just give me . . . five more minutes.’ Henry’s voice was no more than a thin trail, feeble, almost inarticulate, and Dr Power nodded slowly, closing his eyes in understanding as he patted Henry’s shoulder and withdrew to the far side of the room.

  Rose held Henry’s limp hand, stroking it, not able to speak, not able to think of any words, drowning in the tidal wave of sorrow that gripped her heart, relieved almost, and yet ashamed of it, as Henry turned his head to Florrie who held his other hand from the opposite side of the bed.

  ‘Florrie, what a comfort you have always been to me,’ he mumbled.

  Florrie’s double chin quivered. ‘And you, Henry,’ she answered in a faltering whisper, ‘you gave me a home like no other.’

  Her tear-filled eyes met Rose’s across the bed, and when Henry rested his wandering gaze on his daughter, a look of such compassion, of tenderness and love came over him that his face appeared lit with a transcendent glow. ‘And you, my darling, darling child, you will never know . . . what joy you have given me.’

  His eyes seemed to spark with life, the deep blueness of his youth flooding into them as he stared deep into her grieving soul. She was lost in the choking misery that closed her throat and made the glittering tears spill down her cheeks. ‘I love you, Father.’ She dragged the words from her lungs, struggling against her wrenching sobs.

  But Henry smiled back. ‘I know,’ he rasped. ‘But you must . . . let me go now. Just promise me one thing, Rose. Whatever happens in your life . . . always be . . . yourself. Be the headstrong, feckless Rose . . . I have known . . . and loved.’

  ‘Yes, I promise.’ But this time the words were merely mouthed as the agony overwhelmed her, strangled her. Crucified her.

  Dr Power, silently, was beside her, syringe at the ready. Rose could not watch, blinded, and when the doctor moved away, Henry was watching her again. Peacefully.

  ‘No life for me now, Rose.’

  His eyes closed, and he slept. Dr Power checked his pulse and breathed in deeply.

  ‘He’s very weak,’ he said with quiet compassion. ‘I think it might be best if I stayed a while.’

  Rose’s heart thumped hard in her chest. ‘You mean . . .?’ She could not say it, but the doctor nodded soberly, and Rose’s mouth contorted into an ugly grimace as she fought against her tears. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured. ‘At least I know . . . and can be with him.’

  Dr Power nodded again. ‘And, I’m sorry to have to mention such a thing, but perhaps your groom could stable my horse? On such a sharp night . . .’

  ‘Of course.’ An understanding smile slipped across Rose’s lips. ‘Florrie, would you mind?’

  ‘I’ll see to it at once.’

  ‘And I’ll . . . wait in your drawing room with your husband, unless you’d rather I were here?’

  ‘No, no. That’s . . . But Florrie, you’ll come back?’ she added, desperately seizing her plump arm.

  ‘Yes, of course, my lamb.’

  And so they sat, one on either side of Henry’s bed, in virtual silence, each respecting the other’s need for innermost contemplation, and yet welcoming any exchange. The room was dar
kened, the heavy curtains drawn against the cold night, just the incandescent orange and gold brilliance of the fire, and the lamps turned low. Breathless. Unreal. Midnight ticked on into the new day. The doctor glided in on soundless feet to observe his dying patient, and disappeared like a shadow. At two o’clock, Florrie went to make a pot of tea, leaving Rose trembling and alone, and while she was gone, Henry took a few sudden, rattling gasps, opened his eyes to look at his daughter, and remained staring at her, unseeing, for ever.

  Rose felt the life force drain from her limbs. For several minutes, she sat without moving, numbed, in a strange way glad, because the waiting was over and the dreadful time had come, and she would be forced to admit to reality instead of refusing to believe it. She floated to her feet then, bent to lay her lips on Henry’s motionless forehead, and sat back down in the chair, for there was no need for her to do anything for her father ever again. When Florrie came back in with the small tray, Rose’s head was resting on the hand that would never clasp hers again, and when she slowly, reluctantly looked up, she was dry-eyed with grief and an invisible vice around her neck was throttling her.

  Florrie silently put down the tray and seconds later, Charles and Dr Power were in the room. Rose still sat like a granite statue, her eyes in a stunned, sightless stare. Ten, twenty minutes, and she could not be stirred except to push Charles aside when he tried to take her away.

  The doctor squatted down before her and took her icy hands. ‘Mrs Chadwick . . . Rose . . . Death is an inevitable part of life. The only certain thing that comes to us all. I watch men die, prisoners, who have endured a living hell. Who have been pushed beyond what their bodies can take, albeit part of their punishment. Their last days are full of misery, and they die unloved. Probably haven’t seen their families for years. And they are buried in Princetown churchyard, as you know, with not even a stone to mark their graves. But your father died peacefully and with dignity, with his loving family all about him. Please, I beg you, take comfort from that, and think of your own health now, as you know your father would have wished.’

  A faint light seemed to come into Rose’s eyes, and she blinked, a painful swoop and lift of her silken lashes, before she nodded, and rising to her feet, floated out of the room. Charles followed her, but instead of climbing the stairs, she made for the back door. Before Charles could stop her, she was out across the stable yard and into Gospel’s loose box where her howls of misery lacerated the still, frosty night as she clung about the surprised animal’s neck.

  The funeral took place three days later. Rose Maddiford – for no one could ever think of her by her married name – walked behind her father’s coffin, refusing to take the hired carriage as her husband requested. So he walked at her side, supporting her, since it was clear that if he had not she would have collapsed. She resembled a little ghost, dark smudges under her sunken eyes in her gaunt white face, her springing curls swaying down her back like the wings of a raven from beneath the small black hat on her head. For she was keeping her promise. Being herself as she laid her father to rest.

  The hearse with its decorative engraved glass and gold and black coachwork was drawn by a pair of shining ebony horses with matching plumes standing up from their heads, and a rainbow of flowers adorned the mahogany coffin. Behind Mr and Mrs Chadwick shambled Mrs Florrie Bennett on the arm of Mr George Frean, the humble housekeeper leaning on the wealthy businessman, proprietor of the Cherrybrook gunpowder mills. And behind them, Joe Tyler, who had virtually been a son to the dead man, and his betrothed, best friend of the deceased’s grief-stricken daughter. At a respectful distance followed the entire workforce of the powder mills, plus all the wives who did not have small children to care for. There were local quarrymen and miners, too, shopkeepers, the carrier and the telegraph officer, all wanting to offer their support to Rose of Cherrybrook as she buried her revered father.

  And after the interment, when she staggered, half carried by her husband, through the churchyard, she remembered Dr Power’s words and stopped for just a moment to glance back at the plot reserved for the unmarked graves of the prisoners. And her heart overflowed with sorrow.

  Fourteen

  ‘Really, Rose, you cannot keep galloping over the moor like some deranged creature from an asylum!’

  Rose glowered at him from the dressing-room door as she tucked the tails of her fine cotton shirt into the waist of her riding breeches and strode across to the bed where her riding overskirt lay at the ready.

  ‘I’m not behaving like a madwoman, I’m simply going for a ride,’ she said coldly, her eyes narrowed in her haggard face.

  ‘And that’s all you ever do, charge about on that wretched nag! I might as well not exist! I’ve stayed here for weeks on end to talk to you, comfort you, when I should be in London seeing to our business affairs. But you’re never here!’

  ‘And why should I be?’ The expression of contempt, of loathing, on her face was so ghastly, so removed from the lovely beauty he had fallen in love with just over a year previously – was it so little time ago? – that Charles took a dismayed step backwards. But she came towards him, her eyes livid with anger. ‘My father has been dead for little more than a month, and you expect me to be over it! I feel trapped inside this house, lovely as ’tis. But when I’m out on the moor, I feel some sort of peace. So if I want to escape for a few hours, neither you nor anyone else will stop me! And if you need to go back to London, then go. I shan’t be the one to miss you.’

  Charles lifted his chin, his jaw set. ‘No, I don’t suppose you would,’ he murmured bitterly. ‘And I really do need to go to London, just for a few days, anyway. And I suppose,’ he paused to sigh, ‘you wouldn’t come with me? The change might do you good. Take your mind off of everything. After all, Mrs Bennett saw the wisdom of going away when she went to stay with her sister. And it must be doing her some good, seeing as she’s decided not to come back yet. If you come to London with me, I know I should be out most of the day, but we could go to a concert or the opera every night. You enjoyed that, didn’t you, the music?’

  Rose’s spine bristled. It was like a thorn in her side, that Florrie had gone, abandoning her when she needed her most. But Rose understood. They each had to deal with their grief in their own way, and if Florrie’s was to stay with her sister, Rose’s was to fly across the wild openness of Dartmoor on Gospel’s back.

  ‘You honestly believe that would stop me thinking about my father? No! You go to London. I have my friends here, even if you disapprove of them.’

  ‘If you are referring to the Cartwrights or Joe Tyler, then yes, I do disapprove,’ Charles answered tightly. ‘You would hardly associate like that with Ned, and they are no better than he is.’

  ‘How dare you say that? Ned is—’ She bit her lip, and her cheeks flamed hot and red. She didn’t want Charles to know what had happened in the stable that day. Ned was right. Charles was the jealous type, and though he could dismiss Ned – or worse – God alone knew what he might do to her! ‘Ned is just Ned,’ she continued less vehemently. ‘But Joe and Molly and her family are my friends, and just now I really need them.’

  ‘More than you need me, apparently.’

  ‘You said it.’

  Charles stiffened and his face hardened to stone. ‘All right. I’ll go to London alone. But I’ll give you something to remember while I’m gone. And it may help you to remember that you are my wife and no one else’s.’

  Before his words had a chance to sink into Rose’s brain, he pushed her backwards on to the bed and leapt astride her, pinning her down.

  ‘You know, you really do look very fetching in a shirt and breeches.’ He smiled down on her, but there was an unsettling look on his face. ‘I can see those lovely breasts, and the way the breeches fit tightly about your hips—’

  ‘You know perfectly well I’d be wearing the jacket and skirt over the top,’ she retorted, for she knew only too well that excited gleam in his eyes.

  ‘Just as well, my lovely g
irl. We wouldn’t want every man jack to desire you as I do, would we now?’

  His fingers were at the buttons of her shirt, and she tried to pull them away as the blood seemed to circle about her heart.

  ‘For God’s sake, Charles, can’t you leave me alone for five minutes? You’ve already had me this morning, and—’

  ‘And I shall have you as many times as I please, my little tigress. You seem to forget you are my wife, and I get precious little else in return for the luxury I provide for you!’

  His face had set into rigid lines, and Rose felt the rush of fear cramp her stomach. ‘And can you wonder at it! You’re like an animal!’

  ‘Oh, animal, is it? Well, we’ll see about that!’

  She glared at him, exploding with fury, as he ripped open the carefully sewn buttons, and in her outrage, her lashing fists pummelled at his chest. He laughed. And her fingers opened like claws, missing the target of his face, but catching his neck and drawing blood. His expression turned to a mask of iron, and he trapped her flailing hands in his, transferring both her fragile wrists into the forceful grip of one of his own strong hands while with the other he pushed the camisole beneath her open shirt up to her armpits. She scowled up at him, baring her teeth, incensed that she did not have the physical strength to fight him off, no matter how she struggled. He merely grinned back as he fumbled with the buttons of her breeches and she knew there would be no stopping him. She turned her head away with a tearing sigh of infuriated resignation, biting hard on her lip and waiting for the moment when it was over. Charles writhed and jerked on top of her, and finally rolled away, his face flushed and damp with sweat. Rose lay for several seconds, her teeth gnawing at the knuckles of one of her released hands, before springing to her feet.

  She tossed her head, and her hair whipped about her in a tumbled cascade of curls. ‘Well, if you’ve had your fill,’ she barked at him, ‘I’d like to go on my ride now.’