Rosie (49 page)

When his hand stole to her breast the first time Rosie pushed it away immediately, but soon it became a delicious, teasing game, where his hand would come back, and she’d let it linger there for a second or two before stopping him. But each time he touched her there it was harder to push him away. A hot tingly sensation was taking over her body, and although a small voice right at the back of her mind was whispering that she must break away now and cool down, she didn’t want to listen to it.

It was Gareth who moved away. ‘This is getting out of control,’ he said in a curiously shaky voice as he sat up and pulled his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket.

Rosie sat up too, suddenly embarrassed, and pulled her skirt down over her knees. She sat there in uneasy silence for a moment listening to him drawing on the cigarette. Mary had told her that boys wanted only ‘one thing’ and they’d say anything, do anything to get it. Rosie was confused now: why wasn’t Gareth begging her?

He slid his arm around her and drew her back to his shoulder, kissing her gently on the forehead. ‘You are so lovely, it’s hard to control myself,’ he whispered. ‘But I’m only human, Rosemary. If we keep kissing like that, I might end up going too far, and I’ve got too much respect for you to spoil things like that.’

All at once Rosie felt secure. Respect was a word which had never been in her father’s or brothers’ vocabulary, not where women were concerned. As Gareth used it, surely that meant he believed in true love and marriage, and that sex only happened once there was a wedding ring on your finger?

She turned to kiss him, holding his face between her hands. She could feel the words ‘I love you’ forming in her mind, but she knew she mustn’t say them yet, not before he did.

‘You will come to see me in Sussex, won’t you?’ she asked instead.

‘Just try and stop me,’ he said with an impish grin. ‘It’s far too soon to say this, but I think I’m falling in love with you.’

Rosie just looked at him, drinking in those clear blue eyes, the golden tone of his skin and the softness of his lips. She had never felt as deliriously happy as this. All the clouds in her life were at last scudding away.

Chapter Twelve

Thomas stood back and watched Donald rapturously embracing Rosie in Flask Walk. It was two o’clock in the afternoon, he and Rosie had just returned from lunch in a café up by the heath, and now the Cooks had come to collect Rosie.

The reunion was very touching. Both Donald and Rosie were crying and laughing at the same time, and Donald looked as if he would squeeze the life out of her. Frank Cook, his arm around his wife, was grinning broadly, obviously thrilled to be taking his son home. Norah’s face was buried in her husband’s big chest, so Thomas couldn’t see if she was crying too, but he was sure she was.

‘Come on in for a cup of tea,’ Thomas suggested. Seeing this young man whom Rosie had spoken of so often at last and knowing he was off to a happy new life had brought a lump to his throat.

‘That’s very kind of you, Farley,’ Frank’s big voice boomed out, ‘but I think Donald has had almost too much excitement for one day already. If we can just take Rosemary’s belongings, we’ll whisk the pair of them away home.’

Thomas felt a sudden and irrational pang of jealousy. ‘But you can’t,’ he objected. ‘Surely you can spare a few minutes?’

Norah Cook let go of her husband, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. ‘Frank’s right about him being overexcited.’ Always sensitive to others, Norah had picked up on the tension in Thomas’s voice. She thought perhaps he was nervous of two comparative strangers taking Rosemary away with them, without checking them out first. She found that touching. ‘But this won’t be a goodbye, only an
au revoir,’
she said with a smile. ‘You must come down and stay for a weekend with us in Mayfield soon, Thomas. Then we can all get to know each other properly.’

‘They’re right.’ Rosie disengaged herself from Donald’s arms and went over to Thomas, taking his hands in hers and looking up into his face. ‘We should get Donald home quickly. And you will come to Mayfield, won’t you?’

Thomas nodded. He didn’t quite trust himself to speak. Rosie had arrived at the shop this morning just after nine with her luggage, and it was as if a warm, sweet-scented summer breeze swept into the room with her. She was so happy and bubbly; he’d never seen her that way before and it made him feel happy too. They had gone up on to the heath to sit in the sunshine and she’d excitedly spilled out all the events of the day before, and her hopes for the future.

‘Just you remember to write to me,’ Thomas finally managed to say. He didn’t know what was the matter with him. ‘Now, let’s get your luggage into the car. Did you bring the gardening book downstairs?’

Rosie stepped inside the shop. She had left her suitcase and a couple of smaller bags there. Thomas had given her a huge, glossy book about gardening this morning as a going-away present. It was the best present she’d ever had and she couldn’t wait to start reading it. ‘I’ve already put it in my suitcase,’ she said. ‘I can’t thank you enough for it. I’ll read every single word and become a master gardener.’

She stood on tiptoe then, took his face in both her hands and kissed his cheek. ‘I expect you to have some drawings to show me next time I see you,’ she said in a low voice close to his ear. ‘And find yourself a lady friend!’

Thomas stood and waved until the Cooks’ Jaguar disappeared out of sight down Haverstock Hill. Then he turned and slowly walked back to the shop. He had a feeling he did know what was wrong with him. Perhaps he did need a shrink after all; thirty-one-year-old men with only one leg didn’t fall for pretty sixteen-year-olds. It was ridiculous and utterly hopeless.

‘Do sit back on the seat properly, Donald,’ Norah Cook said with a note of exasperation in her voice. It was two hours since they’d picked up Rosemary, and her hopes that Donald would settle down with her beside him on the back seat were proving to be vain ones. He had wriggled and squirmed the whole way, turning this way and that, and commenting on everything from shops and cows in fields to different cars, and firing questions to the point where Norah felt she could hardly bear it a moment longer. But now as they grew nearer to Mayfield and he recognized a few landmarks, so his glee had become overpowering. ‘And could you try and be quiet for five minutes?’

Yet while Donald had grown steadily noisier as the journey progressed, Rosemary had grown quieter. Norah wondered if she was brooding on all the awful scenes of the past ten days, or maybe feeling she’d been railroaded into this job. But she couldn’t ask her now, not in front of Donald.

Rosie
was
deep in thought, but she certainly wasn’t dwelling on Carrington Hall. That was one place she never wanted to see or think about again. She had left before nine o’clock this morning with only the briefest of farewells and without even a backward glance. Yet although she felt today was the start of a happy new life, it could well be likened to jumping out of an aeroplane without checking first that she had a parachute strapped to her back.

Last night she’d lain awake for hours just thinking about Gareth. She liked him so much, but did he really like her enough to come all the way to Mayfield to see her?

She was concerned too about Thomas and Miss Pemberton. Would they stay in touch as they’d promised? They had no real need to, not now Alan’s future was decided and she was off to a new job, but the events of the last week or so had emphasized the importance of these two people in her life. They were a substitute for family, two people who knew all about her, whose advice, friendship and affection she valued above all else.

But it was Donald who was her main concern. As he sat wriggling beside her, overexcited, assaulted on all sides by views, sounds and sights he’d been shut away from for so long, she wondered if she was really capable of guiding him through all the potential minefields she knew were waiting out there.

Life in Carrington Hall had been very regimented and ordered for both of them. At any given time of the day they both knew exactly what was expected of them. There were no decisions to make, they lived by strict rules.

But now the rules were gone. No more locked doors, no bells ringing to tell her to get up, no permission needed to go outside, no uniform. Rosie wasn’t going to be entirely free, she would still be answerable to Mr and Mrs Cook, and because she would be living in their home she would be bound by their code of proper behaviour. But it would be quite different for Donald. He was the prodigal son returning home.

It was this which made her apprehensive. Too much freedom, too soon, could well be disastrous for him. Locked away since he was fifteen, he knew nothing of the outside world. What if he ran out of the house and gave some old lady one of his bear hugs? Or if he took something from a shop not realizing everything had to be paid for, or even wandered into someone else’s home? There would be no alarm bell to ring for help in Mayfield. No other staff to commiserate with if things went badly. Of course his parents would be there, but somehow she didn’t think Mrs Cook would be very strong in a crisis. She still thought of Donald as a young boy, and so he was in many ways. But his body had grown into a man’s while he’d been away from her, he’d picked up habits that might appal her. Rosie wondered if she was aware of all this.

But as they drove into Mayfield and Rosie got her first glimpse of the village that was to become her home, she put aside her anxiety and became as excited as Donald.

There had been so many pretty villages on the way down from London. But there was something about this one that left the others in the shade. The houses and shops in the main street were all joined together in a terrace, yet no two of them were the same. Some had red hung tiles down to the ground-floor windows, some had white painted weatherboard. Some had front gardens and picket fencing, some had front doors opening right on to the pavement. Here a shop with bow windows and a roof so low it looked as if it had been lifted only slightly to slide in an upstairs window. There a three-storey house with majestic pointed eaves. There was absolutely no uniformity, unless you counted the tubs and window boxes of bright flowers. Here a white painted lattice porch, next a few red-tiled steps up to a cottage with roses round the door, and then an open stable-type door with a canary in a cage swinging above it.

Rosie felt that if she couldn’t make her new job work here in such a heavenly place, then she wouldn’t have a hope anywhere else in the world. Then Donald clutched at her arm. ‘Look!’ he squeaked with excitement. ‘Home.’

Mrs Cook turned to look at her son, her eyes brimming with tears of joy because she had feared he wouldn’t remember his home. Rosie couldn’t speak either. That first glimpse of The Grange as Mr Cook turned into the drive took her breath away.

Old trees formed an archway over the gateway and the weathered, soft grey stone house beyond looked like a mansion to her. It had the sort of Gothic windows she associated with churches, and they were framed by long tassels of purple wisteria. Jasmine scrambled up around the arch of the front door, and a fat fluffy grey cat sat on the doorstep as if to welcome them. But better than the splendour of the house was the garden. Even in magazines she had never seen one so lovely. A lush smooth lawn, dotted with rhododendron bushes, swept around the house; there were shrubs and trees such as she’d never witnessed before and, without seeing it, she knew the area at the back of the house would be better still.

‘It’s huge,’ she gasped, and Mr Cook laughed.

‘Not so big as it looks from the outside,’ he said. ‘It’s probably the best example of wasted space you’re ever likely to see, Rosemary. I think the man who built it two hundred years ago just made it up as he went along without a real plan. Just look at that long sloping roof towards the back! If he’d put on a conventional one, there could be two more bedrooms upstairs. But we love it, warts and all.’

Once inside, Donald’s memories came tumbling out over themselves as he joined in the tour of the house. ‘This was my room,’ he shouted out gleefully as they entered one with a low steeply sloping ceiling. ‘I m-m-made a house in the c-c-corner.’

‘He did too,’ Mr Cook said with a smile. ‘He dragged up a big laundry basket and used to curl up in it sometimes and go to sleep.’

Rosie thought the sitting-room which even had a television was the most delightful room of all. It was all pinks and greens with great fat armchairs and dozens of photographs of the entire Cook family, and french windows opening up on to the garden.

It was a large house, but still cosy, full of sunshine and character. ‘Lived-in’ was the expression which sprung to Rosie’s mind. Although there were flowers in every room on polished tables, there were books, knitting, and magazines strewn about too. Odd stains on the carpets proved that children still romped here. Some of the furniture was shabby and old, but some was valuable and old like pieces she’d seen in Hampstead antique shops. She loved it.

As for the garden, her eyes filled with tears as she explored it. There was the pond Donald had spoken of, its surface smothered in waterlilies, fat goldfish lurking in its depths. A white painted summer house, a pretty rock garden, a vegetable patch tucked away behind a rose-covered trellis and a herbaceous border that made her fingers itch to weed it. Donald leapt on to the swing hung from a large chestnut tree and shouted for her to push him. Rosie had never seen such blissful happiness in anyone’s face, and she knew then that whatever problems might crop up with Donald she was going to make sure he was never sent back to another asylum.

After a meal of chicken casserole in the kitchen, which had apparently been prepared by a lady called Josie who came in a couple of mornings a week, Donald went into the sitting-room with his father and Rosie helped Mrs Cook with the washing-up.

‘Donald is very thin,’ Mrs Cook said thoughtfully as she rinsed the plates. ‘We must build him up again with good food and plenty of exercise. His table manners are a disgrace. I shall have to take that in hand, and of course he must have a decent haircut immediately before we can take him out anywhere.’