Rose Rivers Read online

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Rose, must you burst in on us like this?’ Mama said angrily.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mama, but this is an emergency. I simply have to tell you. Nurse Budd is forcing Beth to eat in such a cruel way, and now she’s crying. Can’t you hear her? You have to stop Nurse Budd, she’s making Beth so unhappy. I’ve told Nurse, but she says she can’t do anything.’

  ‘Please calm down, Rose. Really! This is hardly an emergency,’ said Mama. ‘Nurse Budd is an excellent professional and knows best how to care for Beth. Now, I think we’ve bored Mr Walker long enough with nursery matters. Run along, please!’

  Run along! As if I were Clarrie’s age! I hate Mama at times. And I hate, hate, hate it that Paris Walker was smiling at her.

  WHEN PAPA CAME home, I told him about Nurse Budd. He winced when I described the belt restraining Beth, the hand clamping her shoulder, the spoon clanking against her teeth. He went to see Beth for himself, and then he had a long talk with Nurse Budd. I lurked nearby, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying, just the tone of his voice, very calm but very serious. We all know we are in trouble when Papa talks to us like that. We’d sooner he shouted. It wouldn’t make us feel so bad.

  I hoped he’d actually dismissed Nurse Budd. When he emerged, I said I would devote myself to Beth’s care from now on, and I was sure we’d muddle along somehow.

  ‘You’re a very sweet sister, Rose, but that won’t be necessary,’ said Papa. ‘Nurse Budd and I have had a long talk. She’s explained her regime very carefully, and I can see that she’s only trying to help Beth behave. Her methods might look a little harsh, but apparently she gets excellent results. She’s assured me that in this short space of time she’s grown to love Beth like her own child.’

  ‘Are you sure she means it, Papa?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m absolutely certain,’ he said. ‘Now, you mustn’t worry about it any more. Your old pa has taken care of everything.’

  Poor gullible Papa. Much later, when everyone was asleep, Nurse Budd crept into my room.

  ‘Night night, Miss Rose. You mustn’t worry your little head about my methods. You will find I only want the best for Miss Beth. Don’t go troubling your poor papa any more. You don’t want to worry him. You do understand me, don’t you?’

  I understood her all right. She was making a veiled threat. I’m going to make it my mission to spend as much time in Beth’s room as I can so that I can protect her.

  ‘Don’t forget I’m here, Beth. I’m on your side against Nurse Budd. If she starts doing anything you don’t like, just shout for me and I’ll come running,’ I whispered to her.

  Beth doesn’t seem grateful at all. She sometimes even seems to like Nurse Budd. She looks at her expectantly and tries to please her. But when I approach her, she cowers away, as if I’m the cruel one.

  Next week Rupert will be back for his half term, but I don’t suppose I can count on him to help me protect Beth. He will probably be at the Feynsham-Joneses, visiting Pamela. I wonder how many letters he has written to her. He still sends Mama and Papa a short, dutiful letter every Sunday, telling them about sport and lessons and meals, and his friends Hardy and Martin. Those are their surnames. These chaps don’t seem to have Christian names, though one has a Latin appendage: Robinson Minor. There’s also Mackinley, who treats Rupert like his personal servant. It’s ridiculous and demeaning – I can’t understand why Rupert goes along with it.

  Each time he sends me a paltry postscript. It’s usually Say hello to Rose or, slightly more affectionately, Give my love to Rose. In his last letter I got two sentences: Send my love to Rose. Why hasn’t she written to me recently?

  I’ll tell you why, Rupert Rivers. You haven’t written a single letter to me since you went to that wretched school, yet you’re writing pages and pages to that simpering girl and signing each one Your loving friend, Rupert.

  Well, you’re not my friend any more, and you’re not loving. You don’t care a jot about me. I’m not sure Mr Walker does either.

  I wish I could sketch him adequately. I’ve tried a dozen times, but I can never make it look right. I pulled the drawings out of my sketchbook and tore them into shreds. I kept just one, hidden inside the precious copy of Robinson Crusoe that sat in my bookcase.

  The next morning I didn’t go to the studio. I couldn’t face it after Mama had excluded me like a little girl. I didn’t go the following day, or the one after that. Mama didn’t comment. She was very happy to have Mr Walker all to herself.

  Papa had finished his sketches of street children, so he went to his studio again, working on the design for the book cover. At least he noticed my absence.

  ‘Have you got tired of drawing, chickie?’ he asked. ‘Well, I dare say Miss Rayner is glad to have her star pupil back in the schoolroom.’

  She wasn’t at all. I’d become too much of a liability. She tried to set me challenging work – mostly arithmetic, not my favourite lesson. Sometimes it was so difficult, I couldn’t work it out at all. Miss Rayner told me all the correct answers, but only because she had the little crib book to hand. When I asked her to show me the workings of each sum, she blustered for a bit, but she didn’t have any idea and we were both embarrassed.

  She also set me a project on riding because she thought I wanted to learn. She gave me a little book on how to sit side-saddle. It was very kind of her, so I had to pretend to be pleased, and drew several boring sketches of saddles and stirrups and Lord knows what else.

  Papa didn’t seem to care that I’d stopped sketching. He’d become interested in Sebastian’s lurid paintings now. Sebastian had discovered a picture of a pretty male saint being shot full of arrows, and was delighted to discover that he was his namesake. He took the Winsor & Newton paints and used up a lot of Yellow Ochre for St Sebastian’s long hair, and nearly all the Crimson Lake for the blood dripping from his arrow wounds. Miss Rayner didn’t think the subject matter quite suitable, but Papa was amused and gave Sebastian high praise.

  Algie borrowed the paintbox next, and painted little Crimson Lake spots all over Montmorency. He meant them to look like arrow wounds, but poor Montmorency just looked as if he had measles. He didn’t like being cleaned with a damp cloth, and made a sudden dash for freedom.

  It caused chaos because Edie is ludicrously scared of mice and refused to come out of her attic room all day in case she encountered him. Mama threatened to dismiss her without a reference, but Edie said she didn’t care, she wasn’t having no mouse running up her skirts, not for love nor money. Then Jack Boots bestirred himself and stamped around the house on a mouse hunt. He might have stamped on Montmorency himself if he’d actually spotted him.

  Luckily Montmorency had the sense to take refuge in Beth’s room and make himself a cosy little nest in Marianne’s silk skirts. She was back from her stay in the doll’s hospital and looked as good as new, her eyes properly in place, but Papa had wasted his time and money. Beth wouldn’t go near her. She wouldn’t even let me introduce Marianne to Marigold.

  ‘But you love Marianne!’ I said. ‘Don’t be frightened of her.’

  ‘Frightened of her,’ said Beth.

  Perhaps it was because Marianne’s eyes wouldn’t shut any more. She stayed sitting in the corner, staring resolutely ahead, while Beth whispered to Marigold. Montmorency wasn’t discovered until Nurse Budd decided to put Marianne away in the nursery toy cupboard that evening. Montmorency panicked and ran up Nurse Budd’s starched skirts. She shrieked her head off.

  We found this tremendous fun. Even Nurse chuckled happily. Sebastian retrieved Montmorency and took him back to his cage, stroking and scolding him alternately.

  Algie and Clarrie took it in turns to be Nurse Budd. Algie was particularly clever at imitating her flapping hands.

  ‘You’re a card, Algie,’ I said, laughing at him.

  But I didn’t feel like laughing the next day, when I discovered that he hadn’t just painted Montmorency. He’d also coloured in the pictures in Robinson Cruso