Rose Rivers Read online

  ‘Really, Beth, you mustn’t be so pernickety,’ said Mama, frowning.

  Beth bent her head and slid so far down her chair that she was nearly under the table. Alphonse was lurking there, hoping for scraps. He snapped at her irritably and Beth cried out.

  ‘Oh, for pity’s sake,’ said Mama. It looked as if Beth might be taken away again, but mercifully she subsided, nibbling listlessly, nearly asleep.

  By the time we’d finished the vast meal we were all drowsy. We lolled around in the drawing room, utterly stuffed with food. Mama had a doze on her chaise longue, with Alphonse stretched out beside her, snoring. Papa had forty winks too. Phoebe fell asleep in her cradle. Beth nursed Marigold, her head nodding. She looked like a painting by Sir John Everett Millais, posing so sweetly in her red velvet dress, with her hair shining.

  Clarrie and Sebastian played with the doll’s house, Clarrie making the little family climb up the walls one by one to camp on the roof. She let the smallest doll fall, and announced in a matter-of-fact voice that it was dead. She wanted Sebastian to help her organize a funeral, but he was busy setting all the rooms to rights. He took all the furniture out of the biggest room and made a cosy nest of straw at one end, with a water bowl at the other. It was obvious he was preparing it for a new resident.

  Algie was very bored with all this and plagued Rupert to play with him. Rupert gave him several games of Snap, and then showed him some card tricks he’d learned, perhaps from his new friend, Jack. He kept making cards disappear and then reappear in his pocket, as if by magic. Algie demanded to see the trick again and again.

  I wished Rupert could make Algie disappear. I grew bored and wandered off by myself. I went up to my room and set out a piece of scrap paper, the little bottle of black ink and the new pen Paris had given me. I needed to practise. I’m not very skilled with pen and ink and usually make blots. This pen was finer though, and after a shaky start I got used to the nib and learned to control the thin, steady flow of ink.

  I drew Beth asleep in her chair, with ivy and brambles growing all around her like Sleeping Beauty. I was trying to think of a handsome prince who could release her from the enchantment when I heard a knock at the front door.

  I wondered for a mad moment if it could be Paris visiting after all. I ran out onto the landing and heard Edie talking, and then a lady’s voice, deep and resonant, answering her. I’d forgotten that Papa had asked his writer friend, Miss Sarah Smith, to share our Christmas tea.

  I ran down to the drawing room. Mama was sitting up, patting her hair, her cheeks flushed. Perhaps she thought it was Paris at the door too. Papa was still dozing.

  ‘Mama, Papa’s friend has come calling. Papa, I think Miss Smith is at the door,’ I warned them.

  ‘Oh my Lord, what a silly day to choose for a visit! Edward, how could you invite this lady on Christmas afternoon!’ Mama grumbled.

  Papa woke with a start and ran his fingers through his tousled hair. ‘Dear goodness, I’m still so full I feel I need to undo my trousers!’ he said.

  ‘Don’t be so vulgar!’ Mama hissed. ‘Children, I want you to behave yourselves for our guest. Let us hope she will leave immediately after tea. Nurse Budd, take Beth away – she can’t cope with strangers.’

  ‘For pity’s sake, Jeannie, let the child stay and be part of the family,’ Papa protested. ‘If she’s wary of strangers it’s because she never meets any. I’ll not have poor Beth locked up in her own house!’

  ‘She’s never locked up, sir,’ said Nurse Budd indignantly. ‘I do my best to take care of her. But I feel that Mrs Rivers is right. It would be kinder to take her away for a little rest. Come along, Beth, my sweet.’

  I hated the way she used those false endearments. It clearly irritated Papa too. Perhaps he decided it was time to stand up to Nurse Budd.

  ‘I take your point, Nurse Budd, but I think she should stay all the same,’ he said. ‘Beth has no need to fear my friend Miss Smith. She is used to little girls.’

  Edie led Miss Smith into the drawing room. She was a tall, dignified lady, very plain, but elegantly dressed in black silk. She wasn’t alone. She had a child with her, a thin, red-haired girl in the quaintest of uniforms: a tall cap and starched apron and a brown stuff dress with short sleeves, in spite of the wintry weather. She had sharp little elbows and her fingers were red with chilblains, but her blue eyes were bright with wonder and curiosity.

  ‘Merry Christmas, Mrs Rivers!’ said Miss Smith. ‘It’s very kind of you to invite me to join you for Christmas. I hope you don’t mind my bringing an extra little guest with me.’

  ‘Merry Christmas!’ replied Mama stiffly. ‘Is this quaint child a foundling? Good heavens, whatever next!’

  I’d read all about the abandoned children in the Foundling Hospital. I stared at the girl, wondering what it must be like to live in such an extraordinary place.

  Mama was looking appalled. Foundlings are the children of fallen women, and so she thinks they are tainted. She threw Papa an indignant glance and suggested that Nurse take the foundling girl to the nursery.

  ‘I’m not a baby!’ said the girl, with spirit.

  Nurse shuffled forward, still sleepy herself after her Christmas lunch in the servants’ quarters. Nurse Budd marched forward too, still bristling from Papa’s rebuke.

  The foundling didn’t flinch. She wasn’t even looking at them. She was staring at Clover.

  ‘Clover Moon!’ she declared.

  ‘Hetty Feather!’ said Clover. ‘Oh, my!’

  They were acting as if they were old friends. Miss Smith laughed, and explained that she’d once taken them out to tea together. Then she quietly reminded little Hetty Feather of her manners. She promptly dropped a curtsy to Mama, and said she had a beautiful room.

  I wondered what the rooms in the Foundling Hospital were like. I was sure they must be very bleak, like Lowood School in Jane Eyre.

  Papa seemed enchanted with Hetty Feather and asked if Miss Smith had brought her out because she was the best behaved of all the foundlings.

  Hetty smiled ruefully. ‘I rather think it’s because I am the worst behaved,’ she said, which made me like her enormously. I wanted to befriend her at once, and yet I hung back, feeling strangely shy and uncertain. She might not like me. Clarrie had no such qualms, and showed off her doll’s house. Hetty seemed fascinated. I suppose she’d had no experience of grand toys. Perhaps she didn’t have any toys at all in the Foundling Hospital.

  Clarrie started giggling, telling Hetty how Algie had insisted on taking every member of the doll family to visit the miniature lavatory – and then there was a to-do because we all suddenly realized that Algie had mysteriously gone missing.

  We all played Hunt Algie until Clover discovered him hiding inside the biggest ginger jar. There was an even greater fuss trying to get him out, but then Rupert seized him by the shoulders and pulled hard. Mama was very vexed, especially as her precious ginger jar nearly got broken in the process, and threatened Algie with a whipping. She didn’t mean it of course. None of us have ever been whipped in our lives.

  I saw Hetty Feather shudder. She had clearly taken Mama seriously.

  ‘Do they ever whip the children at the Foundling Hospital?’ I asked her.

  She told me a little about her life there. I’d thought a servant’s lot was dreadful enough, but a foundling child suffers terribly, frequently cold and hungry, and forced to do the dreariest chores. Miss Smith was upset because she is a governor of the hospital, and resolved to try to make changes. Papa suggested she write a book about a foundling’s life – but Miss Smith said that Hetty herself might write that book one day.

  It turns out that she has been writing her memoirs! I was amazed. I didn’t think she’d even be able to read and write. Apparently she’s already written hundreds of pages, sitting up night after night and scribbling by candlelight.

  Algie pestered Mama to know what a foundling was. She was very blunt and told him that it was the child of a degenerate wo