Rose Rivers Read online

  I hoped it might be thought too precious for Rupert to take to school. I planned to sneak into his room and dangle the watch by my ear, listening to its tick, tick, tick. But Rupert begged to take the watch with him.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Rupe,’ said Papa. ‘It’s an enormously expensive timepiece with any number of jewels, according to your grandfather. It will get broken in the hurly-burly of Kilbourne.’

  ‘But Rupert loves it so, don’t you, darling,’ said Mama. ‘He must take the watch! My father gave it to him because he wanted him to take it to school. I’m sure the other boys will be impressed.’

  ‘The other boys will think Rupe a show-off,’ said Papa. ‘Why will no one in this family listen to me when I’m the only member with previous experience of public school?’

  ‘Now who’s being a show-off?’ said Mama, her cheeks going pink.

  Papa looked stung. When it comes to boasting about his background he’s the precise opposite of a show-off. Grandmama and Grandpapa had looked down on him at first, but they’d had no inkling that he came from an aristocratic family. I think his cousins might even be lords and ladies. His parents have a huge country house as big as a palace. When I was little, I imagined it like the pictures in my books of fairy tales: high on a hill, all gothic towers, with attics full of servant girls spinning straw into gold, and underground tunnels chock-a-block with goblins mining for jewels. For all I know it really might be like that. I’ve never been there, never met a single one of Papa’s relatives. He fell out with them long ago because of his dissolute conduct with his art-school friends.

  Anyway, last week Rupert went off to school with his trunk and tuck box – and the gold watch on a chain in his brocade waistcoat pocket. Once again Papa tried to persuade him that this wasn’t a good idea, but Rupert still wouldn’t listen.

  ‘What’s the point of having a splendid watch if I can’t wear it, Pa?’ he said.

  ‘Look, Rupe, I just want you to fit in at school.’

  ‘I don’t see why you’re getting in such a fuss about it. I’ve never had any problems fitting in with any of the chaps round here.’

  It was true. All the boys in the streets around us want to be Rupert’s friends. The girls too, actually. When we play cricket in Kensington Gardens, everyone wants to be on Rupert’s team. He is always the captain. I have always been so proud that he is my brother.

  I miss him so. I’ve written to him every single day, but he hasn’t written back to me once. He has simply sent a short note to Mama and Papa, with a tiny afterthought to me: P.S. Say hello to Rose and the others.

  You see, not even my own message! I have to share it with my brothers and sisters. I felt like bursting into tears.

  ‘Don’t pull that face, dear,’ said Mama. ‘You can’t expect Rupert to write you great long letters. He’ll be terrifically busy with his lessons and his sporting activities and his new friends.’

  Papa took me to one side. ‘I’m sure Mama is right,’ he said quietly. ‘But I remember writing letters home when I was at Kilbourne. We were crammed into the common room and there was no privacy whatsoever. We were all required to send a brief letter home to the parents, but any boy writing to his sister would have been mocked and ridiculed. Boys can be very harsh with each other, especially when they’re feeling lost and unhappy.’

  ‘Do you think Rupert will be feeling lost and unhappy?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course he will. He’ll be missing home desperately. And I know he’ll be missing you especially, Rose, because you matter so much to him,’ said Papa.

  ‘Oh!’ I said. ‘Do you really think so?’

  So I wrote Rupert an even longer letter telling him how much I missed him. In fact, on the back of it I attempted a comical picture of our entire family assembled in the garden. It was quite a struggle fitting everyone in. I put Mama reclining on a garden chair with Alphonse on her lap at one end, and Papa at the other end, sketching. I assembled us children in age order, leaving a little gap beside me where Rupert belongs. I drew me waving, Beth clutching her favourite doll, Sebastian holding up his pet mouse, Algie sticking out his tongue, Clarrie making a daisy chain, and Nurse cradling baby Phoebe. I drew the servants standing in a row behind: Mr Hodgson the butler, Mrs Harrison the cook, Edie the parlourmaid, Maggie the housemaid, Jack the boot boy, and little Mary-Jane, the general skivvy. I even put Mistletoe the cat up a tree.

  Halfway through my hand started aching terribly, but I carried on as a labour of love. Then I begged an envelope from Papa – a large one so my picture wouldn’t get creased. I addressed it to Rupert at Kilbourne and wrote in capitals on the back STRICTLY PRIVATE AND PERSONAL so that no boys would look at the contents and mock or ridicule him.

  I’M NOT MAKING any progress with my sketching. I carry the drawing book around with me so it looks as if I’m applying myself, but the pages remain blank.

  Papa saw me with it and smiled. ‘How are you getting on, my dear?’ he asked eagerly.

  ‘Very well thank you, Papa,’ I said. I couldn’t bear to disappoint him.

  ‘Can I see?’ he asked, holding out his hand for the book.

  ‘I’d sooner not show you,’ I mumbled.

  ‘Don’t worry. I understand perfectly. In fact, I like to keep my own sketches to myself,’ said Papa. ‘Still, is it stopping you missing Rupert so much?’

  I shrugged. ‘A little.’

  Of course, it is having no effect whatsoever. I’m still missing Rupert terribly. I suppose it’s not surprising. In thirteen whole years we’ve never spent a day apart.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t fret so, Miss Rose,’ said Nurse. ‘It’s silly moping after Master Rupert. Anyone would think he was your sweetheart, not your brother.’

  Nurse had once had a sweetheart – the under-butler from a grand house. He came courting every Sunday, very red in the face, as if he’d scrubbed himself vigorously with carbolic soap. But Papa’s mama had put a stop to Nurse’s outings because little-boy Papa ran away when the housemaid took him to the park and he wasn’t found until after dark. In those days Nurse was the only one who could control him.

  Nurse is long past finding a sweetheart now – if she ever truly had one. She rambles a lot, and sometimes I think she makes things up, though the scrubbed red face sounds convincing enough. Poor old Nurse. She certainly won’t be up to looking after our children when we’re grown up. So what will happen to her?

  I asked her if she had any savings, and she said, ‘That’s none of your business, Miss Rose. Ladies never discuss money matters, in any case. Now why don’t you please your papa and do some sketching?’

  ‘I’d sketch Rupert if he were here,’ I said, sighing.

  ‘Why don’t you sketch one of your other brothers?’

  ‘Sketch me!’ Algie demanded.

  ‘No thank you,’ I said. ‘Who would want to draw an ugly little goblin like you?’

  Then he kicked me, and I smacked him, and he roared and then bit me. He ended up in the nursery corner and I was sent to my room in disgrace, which infuriated me.

  I lay on my bed in a sulk until I heard a whispery little voice in the corridor going, ‘Montmorency! Come here, Montmorency! Where are you, Montmorency?’

  I opened my door. My middle brother, Sebastian, was creeping along the corridor, his long pale hair in his eyes as he peered at the floor.

  ‘Have you let Montmorency Mouse out again?’ I asked.

  ‘He was squeaking so in his cage, wanting to be petted,’ said Sebastian. ‘I told him I wasn’t allowed to let him out any more, but he wouldn’t listen. I asked him to be a good boy and not try to escape, and I thought he promised, but when I opened his cage he just darted out of my hands and ran out through the door before I could catch him. I’m so worried that Mistletoe will see him and not understand that he’s part of the family.’

  ‘Mistletoe hardly ever comes upstairs. And he’s too fat and lazy to bother with Montmorency,’ I said, hoping I was right.

  I joined Sebas