Rose Rivers Read online

  ‘I can’t wear it, Mama. It doesn’t look decent,’ I said, going into her dressing room and tugging at the hem.

  Mama was looking at her own reflection with complacency. She was wearing a new deep blue velvet travelling dress with a high white lace collar that hid her double chin. Edie was pinning her dashing new hat in place. It had tartan trimming and several grouse feathers secured at a jaunty angle.

  ‘Don’t be so silly, child,’ she said, not even turning round.

  ‘But I’m not a child. I don’t look right in the kilt any more,’ I said. ‘Look!’

  Mama gave me a quick glance.

  ‘Hold still, madam, I’ve just got to the tricky bit,’ said Edie.

  ‘You look perfectly respectable, Rose. I think girls wearing the kilt look very fetching,’ said Mama.

  ‘You don’t wear one,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a grown woman.’ Mama peered at her reflection.

  Yes, grown outwards, I thought, looking at her bulging bosom and behind. I had to wear the wretched kilt with my cream Aran jumper, looking like a lanky eight-year-old. I walked hunched up to try to make my kilt look longer.

  ‘Why are you walking like that? Have you got stomach ache?’ asked Rupert.

  He looked incredibly handsome in his new kilt. He had grown too, but was far too slim to wear Papa’s old one, so Mama had ordered him a kilt in the correct tartan. It was the perfect length. His legs looked very shapely, not matchsticks like mine.

  ‘You cut a fine figure in the tartan, Rupert darling,’ said Mama. ‘My, what a shame Pamela can’t see you in your outfit!’

  Rupert laughed carelessly. He had got away with it. Apparently Hardy was very forward with Pamela at Lady Robson’s Christmas Eve party, and she objected furiously. He became cross too, and asked why she was so high-and-mighty with him when she was so free with Rupert Rivers. Pamela was horrified, and went straight to her mother. Mrs Feynsham-Jones descended on Hardy like the wrath of God and insisted he leave the party immediately, before her husband had him horsewhipped.

  ‘But Hardy will be furious with you when you go back to school, Rupe,’ I said anxiously.

  ‘I’m not sure he’ll even be at school,’ said Rupert. ‘Mrs Feynsham-Jones seems determined to write to the Head complaining about his behaviour. I do hope he gets expelled! Then I won’t have to try out my new boxing skills after all.’ He clenched his fists and made a few playful jabs in the air.

  ‘What about the other boys? You said they all joined forces against you.’

  ‘Hardy egged them on. Martin wasn’t quite so bad. I dare say he’ll want to be friends again, and the others will come round too. But what do I care if they don’t?’ said Rupert, swaggering. ‘They’re only silly schoolboys. They don’t mean anything to me.’

  ‘And Pamela?’

  ‘She’s got a pash on me, you know she has.’

  ‘But doesn’t that mean you’re stuck with her for ever? Imagine how furious Mrs Feynsham-Jones will be if you stop pursuing her daughter.’

  ‘I could do a lot worse than Pamela,’ said Rupert. ‘She’s got a sweet nature, she’s well connected, she thinks the world of me and, even if she’s not quite a beauty, she’s already got a startling figure.’

  ‘How can you talk about her in that cold-blooded manner?’ I said. ‘You clearly don’t love her at all.’

  ‘Love!’ said Rupert mockingly. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re still a little girl.’

  He was so wrong. I knew all about love. I was struck dumb when Paris met us at King’s Cross station. It was a very chilly day but I went hot all over, and knew I was blushing.

  ‘My dear Paris, how lovely to see you!’ said Mama. ‘But you’re not entering into the spirit of our festive enterprise! Where is your kilt?’

  He was wearing his usual crumpled trousers and scuffed boots, and the ancient greatcoat that had apparently cost sixpence from a market stall.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t happen to have a kilt in my wardrobe, Mrs Rivers,’ he said.

  ‘You should have said! You’d cut such a fine figure in proper Scottish dress. Still, I dare say there will be kilts going spare at Pennycuik. That is the name of my family home. I think you will find it very pleasant. It is up on a hill, with sea views, and the air is bracing. We are miles away from those murky jute mills,’ Mama declared.

  It was the profits from those murky jute mills that had purchased every grey stone and piece of slate that made up Pennycuik. The mills had paid for the Chinese wallpaper and the Venetian glass chandeliers and the Persian carpets and the William McTaggart paintings hanging on the walls and the new gas lighting illuminating every corner. They also paid the wages of all the indoor servants who looked after Grandmama and Grandpapa, attending to their every whim, and the outdoor staff who kept up the stable of horses and the well-sprung carriages and the rolling green lawns.

  It seemed bizarre that so much wealth should come from a humble product used to back carpets, but when I thought of all the carpets in houses all over Britain it made more sense. Rich people’s houses. Poor people made their own rag rugs or made do with bare floorboards. If Paris lived in a garret, perhaps he didn’t have a carpet either.

  He was embarrassed when Papa took care of his ticket to Dundee.

  ‘Nonsense, Paris. I always take a whole train carriage and there would have been a seat going spare anyway. My wife and I, the two nurses – three counting little Miss Moon, though she’s too tiny to take up a whole seat. Young Phoebe travels on Nurse’s lap. Then there’s Rupert, Rose, Beth, Sebastian, Algie and Clarrie. That makes eleven of the Rivers household. Still one seat left for you, Paris, old chap.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Edward, we can’t expect Mr Walker to be squashed up with all these noisy children,’ said Mama. ‘The three of us will travel in peace and comfort in first class.’

  Papa seemed taken aback. ‘But that’s rather a waste of money, Jeannie, and I doubt there will be spare seats left now.’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ said Mama, swapping Alphonse from one arm to the other so that she could reach her purse.

  ‘Really, Mrs Rivers, I would love to travel with the children. I find them great fun,’ said Paris.

  ‘I think you’d regret that decision before we were even out of London,’ said Mama. ‘Now, no more arguing!’

  Papa looked angry, but he could see that it was embarrassing to haggle over the matter in public. Mama marched off, taking Paris’s arm, while Papa followed behind.

  ‘There, now we can spread out properly,’ said Nurse happily, but we were all upset that Paris and Papa had been taken from us. I don’t think any of us minded doing without Mama.

  At first the children enjoyed peering out of the windows and nibbling crystallized ginger to ward off travel sickness. When they got fidgety we tried playing I-Spy, and then I read aloud, but Algie kept kicking his heels and complaining that the story was boring.

  In desperation Nurse unpacked the lunch hamper, though it had only just turned midday. Cook had made us a big veal-and-ham pie and a potato salad, with a fruit tart and the remains of the Christmas cake for dessert. The children got crumbs all over their clothes. Algie insisted on eating two huge slices of cake, and then lay back pale and damp and yawning, saying he thought he was going to be sick. Luckily he wasn’t, but it was a near thing.

  Instead he had a nap. In fact nearly everyone had a nap. Nurse nodded over Phoebe, cradling her reverently like an ancient Madonna. Clarrie lolled against Algie, and Sebastian rested his head on Montmorency’s cage. He’d been severely warned about letting his mouse out on the journey, and had to make do with posting titbits through the bars.

  Rupert swung his new gold watch to and fro until he fell asleep. Beth slept too, hunched up into a little ball. Nurse Budd had her eyes closed but was sitting bolt upright, and I couldn’t tell whether she was really asleep or not. Clover was awake and I longed to chat to her, but I couldn’t talk naturally