Rosie (17 page)

‘Better than those prissy teacups,’ he said with a smile, sitting down on the steps which led to the next terrace. ‘Now tell me what are those things you’re planting?’

‘Lupins,’ Rosie said. ‘The ones at the bottom of the garden had seeded themselves, so I dug them up and thought I’d replant them here. They’re all blue ones. I thought they’d look pretty here next year amongst the marguerites; perhaps we could plant something red with them too. That would be nice for the Coronation. I read in one of the magazines you brought me home that all the gardeners in the big parks are planning red, white and blue displays for next summer.’

Herbert felt as if he’d been stung. He hadn’t imagined that she ever thought more than a couple of weeks ahead. Now she was talking of next June.

‘Come and sit down,’ he said, patting the step beside him. ‘I’ve got something I need to talk to you about.’ He wished now he’d taken Miss Pemberton up on her offer to break the news to Rosie. Yet just an hour ago he had thought it was kinder to tell her himself.

Her face clouded over. ‘Is it the trial?’

Herbert nodded. ‘Miss Pemberton telephoned me today, and I came straight home. The trial has been set to start on the 24th of September. And it will be here in Bristol. Not at the assizes in Wells or Taunton as we expected.’

‘Oh,’ she said, and cupped her hands round her mug as if suddenly chilled.

Herbert didn’t know quite how to proceed, even though he’d had it clear in his head on the way home.

‘The trouble with it being here in Bristol is that it’s going to attract a great deal of local attention. I can’t remember when we last had a murder trial here. People are ghoulish about such things and it will dominate the newspapers.’

Rosie turned on the step towards him, her eyes looking right into his. ‘You won’t want me here then,’ she said without a trace of bitterness, only quiet acceptance. ‘Is that what you wanted to say, Mr Bentley?’

‘No. That isn’t what I meant,’ he said, blushing furiously.

Rosie said nothing, just looked down at her feet; they were bare and very suntanned and she flexed her toes so the grass sprang up between them.

‘What about Seth and Norman?’ she asked eventually. ‘Will they be in court too?’ She had refused to ask about either of her brothers in all this time, and Miss Pemberton hadn’t volunteered any information about them either.

‘Norman will be called as a witness of course. But didn’t Miss Pemberton tell you that Seth has been charged jointly with your father?’ he asked.

‘She said he would be tried at the same time,’ Rosie said, then, as if a thought had just come to her, she looked at Herbert sharply. ‘Does that mean the police think he helped Dad do the murders?’

Herbert squirmed. He thought Miss Pemberton should have made this plain to Rosie some time ago. He couldn’t think why she hadn’t. ‘Well, yes, Rosie, I thought you knew that.’

‘No. I didn’t,’ she said. She was thrown entirely. ‘I thought he had only been charged with hurting me.’ She paused for a moment, a strange sense of relief flooding through her that her prayers had been answered and Seth’s wickedness had been seen and would be punished. ‘Will I have to go to court too?’

Herbert noticed she had grown very pale; the freckles across her nose stood out more clearly. He didn’t think it was advisable to try and explain now why the police had dropped some lesser charges against her brother. In point of fact the decision was partly to protect Rosie: to save her a harrowing court appearance and to keep her anonymity. But the police believed that by concentrating their entire efforts on the most serious offence, that of joint murder with his father, Seth would hang anyway and it wasn’t necessary or advisable to spin out the trial and possibly confuse the jury with lesser offences.

‘No. You won’t have to be there, not now. They have enough witnesses without you. Apparently the police have finally tracked down Ethel Parker, so she’ll be one of them.’

‘Will she?’ Rosie exclaimed. Her feelings about this piece of news were mixed. It was a relief to find that Cole hadn’t killed her too, but at the same time Ethel was unlikely to say anything in court which might help her father. ‘It’s going to be very strange for her coming face to face with the two boys she left behind,’ she said. ‘Maybe if she hadn’t run out on them, they wouldn’t be the nasty pieces of work they are now?’

Herbert looked sharply at Rosie. That was a remarkably adult observation. He wondered what her real feelings were about her father and brother. Did she believe them innocent? Or did she know they were guilty? He felt ashamed of himself that he’d had her under his roof all this time, yet he hadn’t tried to communicate with her. But it was too late now to try and discover what was going on in her head.

‘Well, Mrs Bentley won’t want me here if there’s going to be a terrible fuss, will she?’ Rosie said after a moment’s deep thought.

Herbert sighed. Rosie had hit the nail right on the head. His wife might bask in reflected glory at taking in ‘an unfortunate’, but her kind of charity was the fair weather variety.

‘I haven’t spoken to her about it yet,’ he said, but his forlorn tone told Rosie what the outcome would be.

‘It’s okay, Mr Bentley.’ Rosie touched his arm tentatively. She was grateful that he cared and she was reminded then that but for his previous intervention on her behalf she would have been shipped out weeks ago. ‘I understand.’

‘Do you?’ He looked at Rosie raising one eyebrow. She had been brought up with a man who killed women who got in his way. Did she secretly despise him for being so weak with his wife? What sort of woman would she grow into? A tyrant like Edith, or a long-suffering victim like her mother? He fervently hoped she could steer a middle course.

‘Yes I do.’ She suddenly smiled at him. ‘It hasn’t been wasted being here with you. I’ve learned such a lot, about laying tables, gardening and all sorts of other things. I’ll be all right wherever I go. Don’t you worry about me.’

Herbert drank his tea, then walked around the garden with Rosie. He let her show him all the plants she’d uncovered amongst the weeds, then went back indoors, pretending he had some letters to write.

He felt afraid for Rosie. Cole and Seth Parker might be the ones facing the death penalty, but poor Rosie was going to hear things in the next few weeks that would destroy any remaining good memories she had of her family and strip away the last shreds of her innocence. Worse still was the fear that the evidence the police had compiled against her brother Seth would be insufficient for the jury to find him guilty of murder, and that he’d be out on the streets in a few weeks looking for the person whom he felt to be responsible for his father’s plight.

Herbert sighed. Miss Pemberton had the right idea in getting Rosie right away from the West Country with a brand new identity. She’d also been acting in Rosie’s best interests by convincing the police how damaging it would be for her to be forced to stand up in court and give evidence against her father and brother. But her plan of shielding Rosie from any further harm and humiliation sounded almost as bad as incarcerating her in a prison.

He could think of no worse fate than being sent to work in a lunatic asylum.

Chapter Five

Rosie peered through the tall iron gates of Carrington Hall and shuddered. She had imagined that a private mental home with such a grand-sounding name would be a kind of stately home set in beautiful grounds. Instead it was a rambling, ugly building which looked like an old workhouse. The garden was overgrown and very neglected.

Peeling paintwork, dark red brick showing through damaged stucco, the tall fir trees surrounding it and the barred windows added a menacing note to the already melancholy character of a place used to lock away the feeble-minded.

It was pure instinct that made her turn and walk away, back towards the pretty road she’d come along from Woodside Park tube station. The semi-detached houses there were all newly built since the war, with keyhole-shaped porches, neatly cut lawns and tidy flower borders. When she saw them she’d even begun to think things were going to improve for her. Hadn’t life thrown enough horror at her already, without Miss Pemberton betraying her trust and sending her to a crumbling madhouse?

She had gone some twenty yards when common sense prevailed. She stopped, put her suitcase down for a moment, and considered her options.

Where else could she go at seven in the evening? Thomas’s home in Hampstead couldn’t be that far away, but would he welcome her turning up uninvited on his doorstep?

She had no idea about how to get another job or a place to live. London was so huge too, and she had only a couple of pounds in her purse, and was too tired to think clearly. Maybe she was overreacting? Besides, it was a bit spineless to run before she’d even set one foot over the threshold.

Taking a deep breath, she turned back, this time trying to be more positive. The house appeared to have been extended over the years in a haphazard fashion. Even the roof was at two different heights. On the lower side there were two main floors with a row of tiny attic windows below a conventional roof. On the other side there were three floors all with smaller windows and pointed gables up above.

On the ground level other single-storey buildings had been added to the main house; they sprawled round a concrete area which was enclosed by an eight-foot chain-link fence.

Rosie pushed open the gates and began to walk cautiously up the weed-filled concrete drive. It had been raining all day until just an hour ago, and water dripped on her from the overhanging trees. The drive was about forty yards long and as the ground-floor windows had net curtaining on their lower half, Rosie couldn’t see anyone, but she had the distinct impression she was being watched.

She rang the front-door bell, but it was a long time before the door was opened. A fat middle-aged woman in a navy blue nurse’s dress and starched frilly cap perched on iron grey hair scowled at her.

‘Yes?’ she said, as if she suspected Rosie of hawking brushes door to door.

‘I’m Rosemary Smith,’ Rosie said, so nervous now that she could barely raise her voice above a whisper. ‘I’ve come here to work.’

The woman’s sour expression did not change. No sudden welcoming smile or an apology, just a cold stare. ‘I expected you hours ago,’ she said curtly. ‘We’ve all had our tea and the kitchen’s shut up. I’m Miss Barnes, the matron, and I’m much too busy now to deal with you. I’ll call someone to show you round. Come in and wait.’

After her long journey and then her hesitation outside, this cold reception instantly stripped Rosie of her last shreds of self-confidence, and it was all she could do not to burst into tears. She stepped warily into a small area with a black and white tiled floor. It was enclosed by a wooden and wired glass partition. Matron shut the front door and locked it with one of the many keys she had on a chain attached to her belt. Then without saying another word, she went on through a door in the partition and locked it behind her, leaving Rosie trapped in what was virtually a cage.

The day after Mr Bentley had told Rosie about the date of her father’s trial, Miss Pemberton had called to tell her she’d fixed her up with this job. Rosie hadn’t liked the sound of it one bit, in fact she’d pleaded with Miss Pemberton to find her something else, but the social worker talked her round. She pointed out that Mr Lionel Brace-Coombes, the owner of the home, was an old friend of hers and he was prepared to accept Rosie purely on her recommendation, without checking her background. It was also a step in the right direction towards getting into nursing.

Once Rosie realized that no alternative would be offered her, she tried to be optimistic by looking at all the attractions the job offered. It was in north London, and Thomas Farley was only a bus ride away. She was to be paid one pound ten shillings a week, with everything, including her uniform, found for her. But perhaps the best thing of all was that absolutely no one there would know who she really was, not even Mr Lionel Brace-Coombes. Miss Pemberton had somehow managed to get her a national insurance card in the name of Rosemary Smith, and together they’d composed a whole new background for her. Rosemary’s mother was to have died from an infection following a miscarriage when she was six and her father had died last year from a heart attack. Rosie was amazed at how simple it was to change identity. Like a snake shedding its skin.

Miss Pemberton could not have been more encouraging or kind; she was determined that Rosie should make her new start with all the right clothes. She took her up to Bright’s department store in Clifton and bought her, amongst other things, the dark green raincoat she was wearing now. It had a warm tartan lining and a hood, and she could hardly believe she owned something so smart. Her suitcase might be a battered old one of Miss Pemberton’s but almost everything inside it was new. She even had a photograph of her ‘parents’ in a frame to give her new family history credence. Granted the small curly-haired woman and the tall man with a droopy moustache were just friends of Miss Pemberton’s, but the woman had a similar country-girl look to Rosie.

‘You can refer to me as your Auntie Molly, your father’s unmarried sister who helped care for you after your mother died,’ Miss Pemberton suggested, laughing as if she almost wished she was. ‘And give my address in Chilton Trinity as your home address. I’ll write to you just as an aunt would, so if anyone feels like snooping, as people do, they won’t be any the wiser. I can pass on information about Alan. You can always tell people he’s your small cousin.’

Mr Bentley had asked if she would keep in touch with him too. He suggested that she send the letters to his office, and he would reply as Uncle Herbert. Rosie knew by this that he didn’t want his wife to discover where she had gone, or his interest in her. Sharing her secret destination with him made her feel warm inside, as did looking at the leather writing case he’d given her as a leaving present.

But the happy, excited feeling she’d had when she left Bristol this morning was now replaced with terror as she waited, locked in. Through the wired glass which was at eye level, she could see a wide uncarpeted staircase. To the right and left of it were other closed doors, all with a small wired glass panel. The walls were painted a dull pea-green colour, the doors cream. It looked inhospitable enough, but it was a distant noise which really intimidated her. A wailing sound, not crying or screaming exactly, but a bleak sound of someone deeply distressed.