Rosie (52 page)

The day just flew by. They bought a couple of meat pies and a bottle of lemonade and walked through the fields towards Heathfield, stopping on the top of a hill to look at the view, eat their picnic and talk.

Gareth was excited too because he’d been out all week as a fireman on a passenger train. He spoke of the engine so lovingly he could have been describing another woman, and the enthusiasm with which he described all the stations they’d called at made it sound like a hot date. He said it was just a holiday relief, but the foreman said he’d be putting his name down for a permanent post soon.

Rosie wasn’t that interested in engines and stations, but remembering how patient he’d been when she’d gone on and on about The Grange and the Cooks, she made out she was fascinated.

‘Can you come up to London in two weeks’ time to meet my parents?’ he said once he’d told her everything about his job.

Rosie nodded, thrilled that he was taking her so seriously.

‘I’ll be working on the early shift,’ he said. ‘But I can get off at twelve and meet you at Victoria and take you straight there. They really want to meet you. I think Mum knows you are someone special. If you could manage to wangle having the Sunday off, you could stay the whole weekend because I’ve got that Sunday off too.’

They found a little stream and paddled, then lay in each other’s arms kissing, but all too soon it was time to go back to The Grange for tea.

‘What a nice boy he is,’ Mrs Cook said as she and Rosie washed up after tea. They could see Gareth down in the garden watering the plants with Donald. ‘So well mannered and kind. In my opinion they are two of the most important things in a man. When you meet his mother you must look closely at her, though – it’s my belief that mothers form their sons’ characters. If you see anything you don’t like about the mum, as sure as eggs are eggs he’ll turn out to have the same traits.’

Rosie giggled at this. Mrs Cook had a great many homespun theories about people. Although she was a very kind woman in the main, she often dismissed people because their eyes were too close together, their lips too thin, or their eyebrows met in the middle. She said that in men this was a sign that they were born to be hanged. Cole’s eyebrows hadn’t met in the middle though, so that sat that theory on its heels.

‘You might laugh,’ Mrs Cook said indignantly. ‘Frank’s mother was a hoarder. She kept everything, from pieces of string to old envelopes. This house was crammed top to bottom with useless stuff when she was alive. Frank said he loathed it. But what did he start to do once his mother had died and I’d got rid of it all?’

Rosie smiled. ‘That’s not so bad. There’re worse things.’

‘That’s very true, Rosemary.’ Mrs Cook’s small face took on a slightly pensive expression. ‘You watch out for meanness and bad temper. Those are the things which cripple a marriage. But I’m running ahead of myself. You’ve only had a couple of dates with the boy. Go on out in the garden with him now. You can tell him you can have that whole weekend with him. The sooner you check on his mother, the sooner you’ll know if he’s the one for you!’

Gareth’s train was the eight o’clock, and they left The Grange at quarter past seven to take a slow walk down to the station. Gareth put his arm around her and kept stopping to kiss her all the way there.

‘I don’t know how I’ll survive another two weeks without seeing you,’ he said sorrowfully, and his blue eyes mirrored the sad tone of his voice. ‘I haven’t even got a picture of you to look at. Tell me, Rosie, do you care for me?’

Just as when Donald called her Rosie, it caught her short. Donald had said it again in the garden just now as they were watering the plants; she supposed that’s where Gareth had picked it up from.

She took a deep breath. ‘Of course I do. I wish you were close so we could see each other all the time –’ She broke off, wanting to say so much more, but she couldn’t find the right words.

‘But I’m going too fast for you?’ he asked.

That wasn’t what she’d meant at all. What she wanted was the right moment to tell him about herself, the whole truth, before they went any further.

‘Sort of,’ was all she could manage.

‘Well, I’d better slow down then,’ he said and grinned sheepishly. ‘My mother tells me I’m too impulsive.’

‘We’ll have more time when I come to London,’ Rosie said and reached up to stroke his face with one hand. ‘Now we’d better get a move on or you’ll miss the train.’

That night Rosie couldn’t sleep at all. She was so hot. The window was wide open, but there wasn’t even enough breeze to make the curtains flutter. Her bed felt like a huge hot-water bottle and all she had over her was a sheet. Her breasts felt tingly, and each time she drifted into thinking about Gareth’s kisses it felt as if a string was tied inside her and someone was tweaking it. She wanted everything, now. To be absolutely certain that this feeling she had about Gareth really was love, to be convinced he really loved her. She wanted to speed things up, to discover just what making love was about.

Yet she knew in her heart that until she could trust Gareth enough to tell him her secrets, she didn’t dare allow herself to fall any further.

Chapter Thirteen

Rosie sat straight-backed in an armchair, her hands in her lap as she smiled nervously at Mrs Jones sitting opposite her. She wished Gareth would hurry up and come back into the room. His mother was studying her silently and intently, and Rosie found it extremely unnerving.

‘I suppose we ought to be glad of the rain,’ Rosie said in an attempt to start a conversation, glancing over her shoulder towards the rain-splattered window behind her. ‘The gardens needed it. The lawn down at The Grange was getting quite brown.’

It had been bright sunshine when she left Mayfield this morning and she thought she looked the picture of elegance in her new, pale blue shirt-waister dress, high-heeled sandals and white cotton gloves. But it began to rain as she got nearer to London, and by the time she got off the train it was bucketing down. Fortunately she did have her raincoat folded up in her overnight bag, but she wished she’d thought to bring a cardigan and a change of shoes too.

Gareth met her at Victoria Station but he had his motorbike, so by the time they arrived at his parents’ house in Mill Hill, Rosie’s raincoat and sandals were sopping wet and her hair dripping, which was hardly the way to impress his mother.

Rosie had imagined Mrs Jones to be a big jolly woman, but in fact she was small and slender with greying hair pulled back tightly from her face. Despite the severe hairstyle she was very attractive, with good bone structure and an unlined face. She shared her son’s dark skin tone and his brilliant blue eyes, but she didn’t smile, and she was very disapproving, tutting about their wet clothes before she’d even welcomed them.

‘Fancy Gareth picking you up on his motorbike in such weather,’ she said in a sing-song Welsh accent which had an acid edge to it. ‘And you should have more sense than to get on it.’

Rosie was so taken aback by such a chilly reception that she said nothing and accepted the towel to dry her hair and a pair of slippers gratefully. Gareth disappeared upstairs to change and Mrs Jones ushered her into the lounge.

Even if Gareth’s mother wasn’t as she expected, her semi-detached suburban house was. Everything was just so. The red cushions sat in a neat row on the grey settee, an embroidered firescreen of a lady in a crinoline hid the empty hearth, and a highly polished brass companion set shaped like a knight in armour stood next to it. Mr Jones’s armchair had a small table beside it with his pipe, spills and matches tidily arranged in front of the wireless.

Knowing so much about the Joneses’ earlier life, Rosie could well see why such a woman would become houseproud. The snowy nets at the windows and the strong smell of lavender polish told of a woman who knew what it was like to struggle to bring up two small boys and keep things clean with a coal-yard just outside their kitchen door. She understood too how heavenly it must have been to move to a brand-new house after the war, and the way Mrs Jones kept it reflected her pride in her husband for taking her and his family up in the world.

As Mrs Jones offered no comment about the rain or her garden, Rosie tried another tack. ‘This is a lovely house’ she said. ‘So nice and bright. Do you get the sun in here all day?’

They were in a very modern, L-shaped lounge with a small hatch going through from the dining part into the kitchen. Rosie wondered why they’d chosen red and grey for a colour scheme; it seemed a bit dreary to her.

‘Yes, the sun comes in all day. But it’s a nuisance as it fades the curtains and the carpet,’ Mrs Jones retorted sharply.

Rosie liked sunny rooms and she didn’t think she’d care about fading. She also wondered how such an attractive woman with so much – this home, two fine sons, and a loving husband – could be so disagreeable.

‘I hope the rain doesn’t last the whole weekend,’ Rosie said. ‘Gareth was going to show me a bit more of London on his motorbike.’

At this Mrs Jones pursed her lips. ‘I wish he’d buy himself a little car. I worry about him all the time when he’s out on that bike. Our Owen’s got a nice little Ford Prefect.’

‘Go on, say it, Mum!’ Gareth said from the door. ‘But then our Owen doesn’t waste his money on taking girls out.’

‘Oh Gareth,’ Mrs Jones gasped, putting her hands up to her mouth as if deeply shocked, ‘I’ve never said such a thing!’

Gareth just grinned. Rosie guessed this was something she’d said repeatedly, and he wanted to embarrass her.

‘What are we having for dinner then, Mum?’ Gareth asked.

‘The usual Saturday meal,’ she replied, and got up from her seat. From the way Gareth’s face fell, Rosie guessed he was disappointed, and she was soon to find out why.

It was boiled eggs and bread and butter.

Rosie wasn’t hungry, because Mrs Cook had given her a packet of sandwiches to eat on the train, so boiled eggs were fine by her. But what did hurt was that Mrs Jones was making it plain she didn’t consider her son’s new girl-friend important enough to make a special effort for.

‘What did your father die of?’ she asked almost as soon as they sat down to eat. Mr Jones and Owen were still out working. Apparently, they never came home on Saturday until around five.

‘He had a heart attack,’ Rosie said, peeling off the top of her egg.

‘And your mother?’

‘She got an infection after she lost a baby.’ This was something Miss Pemberton had suggested.

‘Gareth said you were only six when she died. Who took care of you?’

Rosie was a little heartened that Mrs Jones wanted to know all about her. She hoped her brusque manner was just shyness. ‘My dad and my auntie,’ she said. ‘When Dad died, Auntie got me the job at Carrington Hall.’

‘She didn’t do you any favours!’

‘Mum!’ Gareth rebuked his mother. ‘Don’t be so sharp.

‘Oh, I didn’t mean it in a nasty way,’ Mrs Jones said. She put her head on one side and Rosie thought she looked like a little bird. ‘I just couldn’t imagine sending one of mine to work in an asylum. And now you’re looking after the boy you met there. There’s stern stuff.’

That sounded very much like a reproach, not admiration, and it made Rosie feel extremely uneasy.

‘Donald is like a big kid, Mrs Jones. I really like looking after him, and his parents are the nicest people I’ve ever met.’ She paused, searching for something to add which might bring some approval. ‘The reason I went to work at Carrington Hall to begin with was because I thought it would be good experience before starting nursing training.’

‘Fancy,’ Mrs Jones said, pursing her lips. ‘And where will you do that?’

‘I’m not sure yet, I can’t apply till next year. But I’d like it to be a London hospital.’

Silence fell, and Rosie suspected the woman disapproved of nursing for some reason. ‘Of course I might change my mind before that,’ she said, in an attempt to find out what Mrs Jones was thinking. ‘I love gardening too. I could become a gardener.’

‘A gardener?’ Gareth exclaimed. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you, Rosie? Girls can’t do that!’

Although Rosie loved gardening more than anything else, it hadn’t actually occurred to her to consider it as a possible career. Apart from one or two posh ladies like Gertrude Jekyll who did become famous for it, she didn’t think there were any women gardeners. But when she saw Mrs Jones’s mouth fall open in shock, for some perverse reason she couldn’t resist persevering.

‘Why not? They did it in the war. It’s an old-fashioned idea to think that only men can dig and prune bushes. As for planting out and weeding, it’s usually women who do that anyway. I should think women would make better garden designers than men too. They’ve got more imagination, for a start.’

‘Well.’ Mrs Jones folded her arms across her chest and pursed her lips. ‘I never heard such a thing before.’

It stopped raining later and Rosie and Gareth went for a walk down to the shops in Mill Hill.

‘I’m sorry Mum was a bit funny with you,’ he said sheepishly. ‘I don’t understand why. But why on earth did you say that about being a gardener? She’ll think you’re really strange now.’

Rosie stopped in her tracks to look at him. She was deeply hurt by his mother’s attitude; even when they were washing the dishes she hadn’t warmed up. She also felt indignant that Gareth hadn’t warned her in advance about her, and she had no intention of kowtowing to either of them.

‘I am a bit strange,’ she said in defiance. ‘Look! I’m not the delicate little girl you seem to think I am, Gareth. I had a tough childhood, left to fend for myself most of the time. But one thing I’ve learned from that, and from things that have happened since, is that I have to make full use of the talents I was born with. I’m good at gardening and I love it. So why shouldn’t I make a career out of it if I want to?’

Just a few days earlier Mr Cook had said he might offer Rosie and Donald’s services as gardeners around the village. Rosie had taken it in the spirit in which it was intended at the time, a bit of a joke, nothing more. But now, in the face of opposition, her opinion hardened that it was exactly what she
did
want.