Rose Rivers Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  About the Author

  About the Illustrator

  Visit Jacqueline’s Fantastic Website!

  All About the Victorians

  Victorian Artists

  How to Make a Silhouette Portrait

  Copyright

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  ROSE RIVERS lives in a beautiful big London house with her artist father, querulous mother, six siblings and seven servants – and finds her life stif ling. She loves to study and longs to go to boarding school like her twin brother, but Victorian young ladies are supposed to be content staying at home.

  She misses her brother very much. But then she makes two new friends, though neither are considered suitable: the new nursery maid, Clover Moon, and her father’s bohemian protégé, Paris Walker. Rose suddenly finds her life turned upside down …

  To Cate and Nash of Much Ado Books

  ‘I HAVE A little present for you, Rose,’ said Papa.

  He handed me a rectangular package tied with string that looked promisingly like a book. I love reading more than anything else, especially the books in Papa’s studio. He doesn’t know that I borrow them secretly. I don’t bother with Mama’s books in the cabinet in the drawing room as they are silly romantic tosh.

  I opened my package eagerly, though I feared it would be a Mrs Molesworth or a Miss Yonge, the sort of authors considered suitable for a girl of thirteen.

  But it wasn’t a novel at all, for children or adults. It was a sketchbook, every page blank.

  ‘I thought this would be a good time for you to start sketching seriously, sweetheart. I know you’ve been feeling rather mopey since Rupert left for school,’ said Papa.

  I didn’t know what to say. He was trying so hard to cheer me up. And it’s not as if I don’t like drawing. I’ve spent half my childhood drawing witches and dragons and mermaids and tigers and goblins. Goblins are fun because I give them the faces of people I particularly detest. When my brother Algie crayoned all over the pages of my book of Tennyson’s poetry, I created an entire community of grotesque goblins with his features.

  I also like drawing girls. Not pretty girls with long brushed hair and demure dresses. Wild girls who have cut off their curls and tucked up their skirts or borrowed boy’s breeches. They climb trees and leap streams and teeter on the very edge of cliffs. Sometimes I draw them being chastised. They are sent away in disgrace. They don’t care!

  Mama always tuts when she sees my drawings. She doesn’t approve of them at all. Papa laughs and thinks them funny, but he says that I should start drawing seriously now. He is hoping that I have true artistic ability. It’s not just because he is an indulgent father (though he is!). He’d like at least one of his children to have inherited his talent. Rupert is the eldest but has never had the patience or indeed any natural ability at art. I am his twin and only fifteen minutes younger, so now Papa is pinning his hopes on me.

  ‘I love your drawings, Rose. They’re very lively and amusing, but I think it’s time for you to learn to sketch properly. You should draw from life,’ he said now, unusually serious.

  ‘Not still life, Papa?’ I groaned.

  Our governess, Miss Rayner, sometimes arranges odds and ends that she feels are ‘artistic’ for us to paint with our shared box of Winsor & Newton watercolours. Last time she gathered a blue and white striped milk jug from the kitchen, a garish china couple won at a fairground, a bowl of fruit and a posy of violets in a pink pot. I tried reasonably hard, but the milk jug tilted alarmingly, the china couple looked drunk, the bowl of fruit wouldn’t stay circular and the posy wilted before I could finish it.

  ‘I know you find still-life compositions boring, Rose, but they teach you observation and perspective and shading. They will bring your sketches to life, so that they seem realistic representations.’

  ‘I don’t care for real life, Papa. I prefer living in my imagination,’ I said.

  He laughed at this. He doesn’t mind if we argue with him, so long as we do it politely. He actively encourages us to discuss and dispute.

  ‘I do sympathize, Rose,’ he chuckled. ‘But sometimes we have to do things we don’t care for. I spent my first year at art school copying plaster casts. It was deadly boring but it taught me a great deal.’

  ‘Then send me to art school, Papa!’ I said.

  He laughed again. ‘Perhaps, when you are eighteen or so, I might send you to Paris to be properly trained, though I know Mama will object!’

  ‘Mama always objects,’ I said. ‘In fact, one could say that Mama is objectionable!’

  ‘That’s enough, Rose,’ Papa said firmly. He lets me argue with him, but he will never allow me to criticize Mama.

  ‘How can I wait five whole years anyway?’ I said instead. ‘Couldn’t I go to a boarding school where they have a good art teacher?’

  I’d read about girls’ boarding schools. I longed to go to one. I imagined charismatic teachers and intelligent girls having lively discussions in classrooms. I saw myself strolling through rose gardens, arm in arm with bookish girls, sipping cocoa together in our nightgowns, confiding secrets.

  I knew I was wishing for the moon. This was another tired old argument, and one that involved further criticism of Mama. She had no qualms about sending my brother Rupert away to school, but she refused to even consider my education. I have to make do with Miss Rayner in the nursery schoolroom.

  Sometimes I find it very hard indeed to like Mama. However, I love Papa and I will try to learn to sketch properly for his sake.

  ‘May I sketch you, Papa?’ I asked.

  ‘Certainly! And I will sketch you simultaneously, Rose!’ he said, very pleased.

  It was companionable sitting in Papa’s studio. We had a delightful conversation about artists too. They seem to live the most interesting and unconventional lives. I would very much like to be an artist – but I don’t really like doing art. I tried so hard to do a good sketch of Papa, but it was a complete failure. He went lopsided like the milk jug, and I made him look incredibly fierce when he’s the most amiable man I’ve ever met. Not that I’ve met many men. I sometimes think a nun in a convent has a better social life than me. If only I could go to school. Rupert is so LUCKY!

  When I’d finished sketching, Papa wanted to see my portrait, but I wouldn’t let him. I didn’t want him to see what a failure I was. He is always hopeful that one of us will show artistic talent. He does his best to be encouraging. He praises Algie’s scribbles even when they’re in inappropriate places like the whitewashed nursery cupboards or the hall skirting board.

  Papa’s praise obviously means a great deal, because he is the painter Edward Rivers, well known in artistic circles. He is a follower of the great Pre-Raphaelite painters, and when he was a young man he was considered equal to them in talent. He was also wild and bohemian. He even had a pet wombat, just like his hero, Rossetti.

  How I wish he had a womba