Free The Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon Page A

winding path, under the rose arch, to the wilderness, although this last now seemed a somewhat vainglorious name for a quarter acre of shrubbery. Our entire Clapham plot would have fit into the Italian Garden alone at Stukeley.
    After half an hour I heard the front door close, so I crept downstairs to join Mother at breakfast. She told me that during the night Aunt had suffered severe palpitations and was still fighting for breath. The doctor had ordered that she was to be kept in complete seclusion, preferably bed rest, for the next week at least. The long railway journey, coupled with the strain of recent widowhood, had put an intolerable stress on her heart and nerves.
    “It’s unkind of me to say this, I know, but it’s inconvenient,” said Mother. “I have so much on.”
    “I can help.”
    “Of course you can. And there’s Rosa, and their maid.”
    “What did Father say?”
    “He said we must do everything necessary, of course. But he was in a hurry. There’s been a problem with the Wandsworth site to do with the proximity of the railway. The drains are affected.”
    Rosa appeared in a flowing white dressing gown that swirled round her feet when she stooped to kiss us. She threw into sharp relief anything in the room that was old or shabby, yet when she touched a chair-back or a napkin they suddenly became part of the graceful picture that was Rosa. She was blooming after her long sleep. “You cannot imagine how wonderful it is to be here. I woke up and thought, I can’t believe I have actually got away. That house in Derbyshire had become a mausoleum.” She reached across the table for the coffeepot and spread a lavish helping of butter on her toast. “So tell me,” she said, “what shall we do today?”
    “Your mother is ill, Rosa, dear,” said my mother. “We called in the doctor.”
    “There was no need. She’ll soon pick up.”
    “He thinks not. He said she’ll need constant nursing. It’s always a worry when the heart is affected.”
    “Nora can do it. That’s why we brought her down with us.”
    “Nora was up all last night, she needs to sleep.” Rosa had stopped eating and was watching Mother attentively. “For the time being, at least, while your mother is so sick, I think we must be sure she gets proper care. And I feel it would be unkind to bring a nurse in from outside, the moment you arrive.”
    Rosa got up and pushed back her chair. “I’ll nurse her, of course I will, it’s no trouble, I’m used to it, I wouldn’t want us to be a burden on you. Perhaps if Mariella and I could just step outside for an hour or so to get some air first, if you wouldn’t mind, dear Aunt Maria, just taking care while we . . .” She dashed away tears. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’m a little weary of nursing, that’s why I’m being selfish. My stepfather had a dreadful illness, some kind of growth in the gut. Mama couldn’t bear to be near him and he was so bad-tempered the nurses wouldn’t stay, except Nora but he disliked her. And he was good with me, he seemed much calmer when I was there. I never mind being with sick people really. In fact it’s how I’d choose to spend my life, if I could be of proper use. I’ll go up to Mama immediately . . .”
    She flew out of the room. We heard her pause in the hall and draw a long, shuddering breath, then her light step on the stairs.
    An hour later she and I were in the omnibus heading for the river while Mother stayed at home to nurse her sister. “I have only to cancel a short meeting this morning. It’s nothing. Poor Rosa deserves a little holiday.”
    Nevertheless, Mother’s sacrifice weighed heavily on my conscience as Rosa and I sat knee to knee with an elderly gentleman in a dusty hat, and a nursemaid holding a young child, all three transfixed by Rosa, who was peering hungrily out of the window and whose glinting hair provided a fetching contrast to her black gown, shawl, and bonnet. “First we’ll go to Maryle-bone,” she