Rose 4: Rose and the Silver Ghost (3 page)

‘What are we to paint today?’ Bella asked, rather unenthusiastically, swooshing her brush about in a water glass.

Miss Fell frowned. ‘Isabella, dear. Don’t splash. Today I have found a painting for you to copy.’ She brought a pasteboard folder over to the schoolroom table, and untied the ribbons. The watercolour inside showed a large house, built of white marble, like some ancient temple, and surrounded by perfectly green gardens.

Rose’s shoulders slumped a little. At least in their lessons before they had painted flowers, and one of the china ornaments from the drawing room. Copying another picture seemed so dull.

‘Try to match the colours,’ Miss Fell instructed them. ‘See the delicacy of line? Light washes, girls, no heavy-handed brushstrokes.’ She sighed, and gently stroked a finger down the paper.

Rose wondered why she kept the painting tucked away in a folder, instead of having it framed to go on her wall. It was clear that she loved it.

Rose dipped her brush into the water, and tried to enjoy watching the colour spread across the paper. But it all seemed so silly! She was no pampered little rich girl, being groomed for a society match. Why on earth was she bothering with this?

The answer was simple, of course. Because she wouldn’t dare refuse, although she was rather hoping that Bella might do it for her.

But Bella was doodling happily in a mixture of green and pink streaks, the odd tree shape appearing here and there. Rose glanced over at Miss Fell, who was staring out of the schoolroom window at the square, twisting a lavender-scented handkerchief between her fingers.

Irritably, Rose sketched in the line of the colonnade along the front of the house. It formed a pretty terrace, where doubtless the daughters of the family were allowed to stroll.
Probably they went nowhere else
, Rose thought bitterly,
constrained in corsets so they could walk only a few steps among the peacocks. Perhaps she had been better off in an orphanage after all? But a magician’s daughter wouldn’t be so hemmed in
, she admitted, spying Bella now mixing paint directly into her paint water to make tornado-swirls. Delicate mists of colour sank through the water – until it turned an ugly purplish-brown. No one could stop Bella doing what she wanted.

And not me, either
, she told herself, half-looking at the watercolour, and painting without thinking. A pattern grew under her fingers, coils and swirls and feathery shapes, and the peacocks stalked slowly through her thoughts.

‘What is that?’ A papery whisper pulled Rose out of the strange, dreamy state she’d been in, and she jerked, streaking red paint across her sketch. Miss Fell was standing over her, the handkerchief now pressed to her lips.

‘Oh – I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to…’ Then she tailed off, looking down at her painting. The house was still there, but the composition had changed entirely. Now a young girl was walking through the scene, heading away from them towards the house, a shawl trailing from her elbows. She had one hand stretched out, with a piece of bread to feed the peacocks, and they walked beside her, their tails trailing along the ground like her long shawl. The feathers seemed to grow into the intricate pattern of the fabric, as though she was wearing them too.

‘That’s – that’s not in the picture,’ Rose stammered.

Bella leaned over from her side of the table to examine Rose’s work. ‘How did you paint that?’ she asked wide-eyed. ‘Rose, last week your posy of snowdrops looked like tree trunks. And who is she?’

‘How did you know her?’ Miss Fell asked, her voice still strange. ‘You can’t have known her! What did you do?’

When Rose simply gaped at her, the old lady seized Rose’s chin in her hand, and pulled her face around, turning it so she could look into Rose’s eyes.

‘I didn’t! I didn’t do anything! I was thinking, and not paying attention, it just happened. I don’t think I painted it at all,’ Rose added, shamefaced.

Miss Fell let go of her, and clutched the back of a chair, as though she needed it to stay standing. Rose and Bella stared at her, wondering what on earth was wrong, and whether they should do anything. This wasn’t like Miss Anstruther’s fits of the vapours. Rose was sure she could see the old lady’s bones as she clung to the chair, and she was trembling. ‘Miss Fell?’ she asked hesitantly. ‘Ma’am? Should we fetch you a – a cordial? Or some smelling salts?’

‘Useless quackery,’ the old lady snapped, seeming to come to herself all of a sudden. ‘Make sure that you wash those brushes properly, girls. I have a slight headache, and I shall be going to lie down.’

But she tottered from the room, actually leaning on her cane instead of using it as part of her harmless-old-lady disguise as she usually did, and as the door swung shut behind her, Bella raised her eyebrows at Rose. ‘
Slight headache
, my foot,’ she pointed out.

Rose nodded, and picked up her sheet of watercolour paper. ‘Who is this?’ she asked, staring down at the girl in the picture, and tracing the interlocking pattern of the paisley shawl. ‘I don’t remember her. How could I? I can’t see her face properly, but I’m sure I’ve never met her. There’s something though…’

Bella frowned at the painting too. ‘She isn’t all that much older than us,’ she pointed out.

Rose rolled her eyes without Bella seeing. Bella hated being the youngest in the house, and refused to admit that Rose was older than she was. Rose didn’t actually know how old she was, but she was reasonably certain she was at least ten or eleven. Bella was only eight. But Bella was right – this girl was young. ‘Perhaps fifteen or sixteen?’ Rose suggested.

‘She’s got a tolerable figure,’ Bella pronounced. ‘But I don’t think her hair is naturally that fair. Probably it’s the same colour as yours, and she put lemon juice on it.’

‘Or maybe I just painted it the wrong colour,’ Rose said.

‘Oh, don’t be so silly,’ Bella snapped. You only held the brush. This was a spell. Miss Fell knew it too, and more than she was saying.’ Bella’s eyes were fixed on the strange sideways portrait, as though she was willing the girl to turn around. ‘It was something to do with you and that house – and her.’

‘You mean, she really is still working? As a
servant
?’ Miss Fell’s fluting voice filled the word with horror.

‘Well, yes.’ Mr Fountain looked uncomfortable, glancing at Rose as though he hoped she might rescue him.

‘In between her lessons?’ Miss Fell went on, glaring at Rose. ‘She is an apprentice, how can she possibly be a maid as well?’

‘I’m used to working, ma’am,’ Rose murmured.

‘Be quiet, Rose.’ Gus walked along the back of the chaise longue, and wafted his tail over her mouth. Rose tried to argue and found she couldn’t – her mouth felt as though it had been stuffed with hair. She swiped at it, and glared angrily at Gus, but he only purred, his eyes smug. ‘She is ridiculously stubborn, and I have been telling her for months that she can’t be a magician’s apprentice
and
a housemaid.’

Rose hadn’t realised that Miss Fell thought she was an apprentice and nothing else. She had lain awake through the night, hearing the city bells tolling hour after hour, as she wondered and worried about the girl in her painting. Then she had dragged herself out of bed at six to lay the fires. She had been laying Miss Fell’s bedroom fire, and had stupidly dropped the fire irons in the grate.

The clumsy crash of the irons had woken the old lady – who had been remarkably patient with the careless servant in front of her, until she discovered who it was. Miss Fell had swathed herself immediately in a lace-trimmed wrapper, and summoned Mr Fountain and a tea tray to the drawing room. Gus hadn’t been summoned – he had arrived out of incurable nosiness.

When they had returned from Venice, Rose had been unsure what she was supposed to be. While they were away, she had very definitely been a young lady – she had danced at a palace ball, for a start. Little Venetian servant girls had lit the fire in her bedroom – and to her shame, she had even stayed asleep while they did it.

But back at Mr Fountain’s house there had been the flurry of finding a room for Miss Fell, and dusting it, and hanging the curtains for the bed, and fussing until everything was perfect. So Rose had found herself putting away her beautiful silver lace dancing dress on a hook in the tiny bedroom up in the attics, feeling quite sure she would never wear it again. And then she had run down to the kitchens to soothe Mrs Jones’s panic about how to produce a suitable supper for the master and his guest, when (she claimed) there was only a haddock in the house, and that was past its best.

How could she possibly refuse to help? As Rose stared at Miss Fell’s disapproving face, she imagined a similar expression on her own, as she told Miss Bridges that she was not a servant now, and would not be ordered around. She hadn’t joined the family at the supper – which wasn’t haddock, of course, although Mrs Jones swore that she was ashamed to send it upstairs.

‘But I
am
a maid,’ she whispered. ‘That’s why I came here. Miss Bridges took me out of the orphanage, ma’am. I can’t forget that.’

Miss Fell’s eyes glinted like flints. ‘You must. You are no longer a servant.’ She stared thoughtfully at Rose. ‘It’s much easier to be a housemaid, isn’t it, Rose?’

Rose gasped. She was willing to bet Miss Fell had never scrubbed steps, or blackleaded a grate. How on earth would she know? Did she think maids spent all their time gossiping in the kitchens?

‘She’s right.’

Rose flinched as Gus delicately pricked her hand with one extended claw. She glared at him. She much, much preferred him as a dance partner, she decided.

‘It may be hard work, but someone is always telling you what to do. You have a list to run the errands, or you just do the same back-breaking chores every morning. You never have to think.’ The silvery-white cat swiped his whiskers across her cheek affectionately. Their tips felt like tiny dancing feet. ‘No difficult decisions to make. You can be lazy.’

Rose stared down at her lap, where her hands were tightly folded. Callused, dry-skinned hands, which Bella kept being rude about. But Rose couldn’t stand the thought of raw chicken-skin gloves, however much Bella swore they would make her skin pretty and soft again. She stretched out her fingers, eyeing the roughened patches.

Was that what it was? That she didn’t want to give up a life where she only had to follow orders? She had always had marked hands, for as long as she could remember, for she had worked at the orphanage – they all had, even the littlest ones could carry washing. Rose had been proud of working, and delighted with her wages. Mr Fountain had paid her the same allowance he gave Freddie, since she became an apprentice, but that didn’t feel quite the same.

‘Freddie always has dirty hands too,’ Gus told her helpfully. ‘Covered in ink, and who knows what else.’

Rose sighed. ‘But who will do my work?’ she asked miserably. ‘Already they’re stretched below stairs, with me having so many lessons.’

‘Can your housekeeper not engage another maid?’ Miss Fell asked. ‘Or even two. Really, the house seems to be run on a skeleton staff as it is.’

Mr Fountain sighed. ‘I suppose so. I dislike new people in the house. It feels different.’ He twirled his moustache irritably around one finger. His magnificent scarlet brocade dressing gown clashed horribly with the mauve armchair he was sitting in, and he looked generally grumpy, and very tired. He was spending even longer than usual at the palace, dragged into meetings about military strategy, and war defences, and he hated it. ‘I will speak to Miss Bridges.’

‘What will I do, when I don’t have lessons?’ Rose’s voice was small. ‘I could help in the kitchens anyway, couldn’t I?’

‘Of course not!’ snapped Miss Fell. ‘I am trying to get you out of the kitchens, child. You should be in the schoolroom, or the workroom. Or you may sit in your own bedroom, of course. You should practise your sewing, that would be very suitable.’

Gus gave a short purring laugh. ‘Sitting cross-legged on her bed like a tailor, ma’am? She sleeps in a garret. No chair and only a hook for her clothes.’

Miss Fell closed her eyes, and shuddered slightly. ‘Of course. Well, there’s no shortage of rooms. I will speak to Miss Bridges about this myself. Perhaps the room opposite mine?’ She asked Mr Fountain out of courtesy, but it was plain that she expected him to do as he was told.

‘But I like my room, the one I have now,’ Rose faltered, aware that she was sounding stubborn and silly.

Miss Fell hardly glanced at her. ‘You are a young lady, Rose. You are being educated. It’s hardly appropriate for you to be living in an – an attic.’

Rose gulped back a sob. Her precious first maid’s place had gone, and now her little room as well. It was all very well to say that she would have a proper bedroom now, one that suited her station in life, but that room had been the very first place that was hers. The first clothes that had been only ever hers hung on those hooks. Her eyelashes fluttered miserably. She supposed she would have to get rid of those too. In her strange, unhappy mood, she forgot how delighted she had been with the new dress from Venice, and smoothed her too-short dark wool dress lovingly over her knees.