Free The Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon

asked.
    “They’re not hiding places, they’re the opposite in fact. I like being where nothing can distract me from myself or you. In a secret place I can be sure of being what I want to be. As opposed to what others want. Especially him, that man, Stukeley. I never want him to find me.”
    The box hedge ran in a neat square round the outside of the water garden, broken in places to allow paths to run through the gaps. We entered it at one end and by crouching down tunneled our way to a little open space right in its very heart. The first time I sat there with Rosa, cross-legged, knee to knee, she leant forward and clasped both my hands. “Tell me all about your life at home.”
    “Oh, there’s nothing to tell.”
    “There must be. What do you like? Who do you like? How do you spend your days? ”
    I told her about my sewing and showed her the smocking on my blouse and the embroidery on my pocket. “Would I be able to do something like that?” she cried, peering intently. “I can’t believe you made those tiny stitches.”
    “It would take a while for you to learn. Perhaps we should start with something quite simple, like a needle book. You see, I was taught by an expert, my Aunt Eppie, who was a professional needlewoman. She practically supported her family with her needle, right up to her death.”
    “Ah, so she’s dead.”
    “She is.” I took a deep breath. I couldn’t help myself, I had to speak his name. “And since then my second cousin Henry has become like a son to my father and mother. He lived with us for a while and he still comes to our house whenever he can. Father takes a great interest in his education.”
    “How old is this Henry?”
    “Now he’s nearly twenty.”
    “And if he’s like a son to your parents, does that mean he’s like a brother to you? ”
    “A brother? Well. Perhaps. I don’t know what brothers are like...”
    “Stepbrothers are not much use to anyone.”
    “Henry’s not like that. Henry, I’d say, is more than a brother. When he stayed with us I was only eight but I spent hours with him and we talked all the time.”
    “What did you talk about?”
    “Everything. Medicine quite a lot, even then. He’s studying to be a doctor.”
    “I wish Max would do something worthwhile, but he won’t, I’m sure. If he became a doctor, for instance, at least I could help him by being his housekeeper or some such. Mariella, you’re so lucky.”
    “I know.”
    “Do you love him? ”
    “Of course I love him.”
    “Like a husband?”
    “Oh no, not at all. Not like that. In any case, he’s much older than me.”
    “But you love him, I can tell. Oh, Mariella, please don’t love this Henry more than me. You won’t, will you?” She cupped my chin in her hands and rubbed my nose with hers until I giggled. “I love you better than anyone else in the world,” she whispered.

Eight

    LONDON, 1854
     
     
     
    T he day after Rosa and Aunt Isabella’s arrival I was woken early by a commotion downstairs: a brisk knock on the front door followed by Mother’s voice in the hall. Rosa was still asleep in the bed we’d had carried in from another room. With her hair spread over the pillow and one arm bent behind her head, she might have been modeling for a painting of the kind displayed at the Royal Academy, called Innocent Slumbers , or some such.
    I tiptoed onto the landing, peered down, and saw that the doctor was being shown into my aunt’s room, though it was barely seven o’clock. Mother would never dream of putting him to such inconvenience unless Aunt Isabella was dangerously ill.
    I dressed in the room intended for Rosa, where the air was perfumed with the flowers I’d picked for her, and mats with edges of hairpin lace, crocheted by me, were scattered about to receive her bottles and brushes. Ruth and I had buffed the bedposts, twisted and shiny like barley-sugar sticks, and dusted every last bit of molding on the mantel. The windows overlooked the garden with its