Rosie
Chapter Thirteen
Colin had lost his mind.
Putting her in charge of theatrical for the children? Her? And expecting a functioning theatrical from them at all?
Complete and utter madness.
Granted, Rosie could certainly write a theatrical, and probably a fairly good one. She had read several plays and novels, many short stories and fairytales, and had secretly written bits and pieces of her own. The foundation was certainly there for her to be able to accomplish the task quite well, and her imagination really did not need much prodding in order to be able to do it.
The trouble was that Rosie’s sisters were absolutely helpless, and her patience with them was growing thinner by the moment.
That wasn’t too surprising; her patience was rather thin with everybody these days, and in general, but she’d always managed an extra measure where her sisters were concerned.
She loved her sisters immensely and would always be the elder sister who tried to make sure everything was perfect and right for them. Their lives had been filled with upheaval for years, and despite the stability they had found in living with their half-brothers, it wasn’t exactly traditional. Oh, she loved her brothers very much, and their wives were the best stand-in mothers she could have wished for herself or her sisters.
But she was worried more and more these days that she and her sisters would somehow get pushed aside again as their brothers’ own families increased and grew. They would become less and less important as the children required more and more attention. It was only right, she supposed, that it should be that way. They probably should focus on their children instead of their sisters.
It didn’t make her feel any better, but she thought it ought to be acknowledged.
And Rosie, being Rosie, was feeling rather defensive about her position and that of her sisters.
Which made the notion of her preparing the family theatrical one of the worst ideas Colin had ever had, and Colin had a lot of bad ideas.
No direction, no guidance, and not a single worthwhile idea between the three sisters.
Bitty would want to do everything about fairies and fancy dresses, parties and dancing, and probably want to sing a song.
There would be no singing of songs, if Rosie had anything to say about it.
Which she did.
Ginny wasn’t so bad. She generally went along with almost everything, except for when she was being particularly stubborn.
As she was now.
But that had nothing to do with the theatrical, and everything to do with Ginny.
“No!” her youngest sister shrieked. “No, you will not cut my hair!”
Rosie rolled her eyes and huffed. “Ginny, I don’t want to cut your hair off. I wouldn’t even cut all of it. I just need a very small lock of it for my presents.”
Ginny narrowed her eyes at Rosie. “You first.”
Rosie shrugged and took the shears she held to a lock of her own hair. With a crisp snip, the end of the curl fell to the floor. She picked it up and held it out for Ginny to see.
“There,” Rosie told her. “Satisfied?”
Ginny frowned, apparently still unconvinced. “Not really.”
Bitty groaned dramatically and marched across the room. “Ginny, please! We don’t have much time, and we’re supposed to be rehearsing the theatrical! I don’t even know my part!”
“That’s your problem, Bitty.”
“Yours too, if the theatrical fails because I didn’t get enough time to rehearse,” Bitty snapped.
Rosie and Ginny looked at Bitty in surprise. Bitty never snapped at anyone or anything, and rarely raised her voice at all. She had always been the most cheerful and tenderhearted of the sisters, for whatever reason, and while she had the tendency to be a bit silly and frivolous, she also balanced the other two, who could be notoriously difficult.
“What’s wrong, Bitty?” Rosie asked, setting aside the shears and the lock of hair.
Bitty sank onto the floor with a sad sigh. “We’re trying everything you said, Rosie. I tried to bake a pudding for my present, because I thought it would be something special to make a gift myself. And you’re not even supposed to bake puddings, according to Mrs. Fraser! I ruined my present, and I have nothing else to give them.”
“And they didn’t want Humphrey,” Ginny muttered, sitting next to Bitty on the floor, leaning against her. “I thought they would find him amusing, but they didn’t.”
Rosie winced. “I don’t think that’s much of a surprise, Ginny. I could have told you that if you’d confided in me about Humphrey before you purchased him.”
Ginny shrugged without concern. “He was supposed to be a surprise for all of us. Telling anyone would have ruined it.”
“There is that, I suppose,” Rosie conceded with a smile.
Bitty looked up at Rosie, her eyes wide and sad. “Rosie, you said we have to make Christmas special so we can be a real family. But we don’t know how to do Christmas. We don’t know how to make anything special. Maybe we’re not a real family after all.”
There were not many things that Rosie found herself being ashamed of, but her speech to her sisters about being a real family and making Christmas special for their brothers might have been one of them. She’d never intended to bring this much trouble to the family, or to cause the havoc that had been on a never-ending cycle since they’d come to Benbridge.
All she’d wanted was to prove to their brothers that they deserved their place in the family, and convince them not to think otherwise.
Things had been bad enough in London after she’d returned from school with Colin practically shoving Christmas down their throats. They’d acknowledged Christmas in the past, of course, but it had always been a quiet time, aside from various births and Gerrard antics. His energy surrounding Christmas traditions and activities had made Rosie apprehensive.
They’d never had Christmas before they’d come to stay with Colin and Kit, aside from small gifts that their mother had managed. Loughton had never treated any of them as though they were family, and there hadn’t been much money for anything fine. They hadn’t even gone to a church on Christmas as children, and if that wasn’t indicative of a problem, she didn’t know what was.
How could her brothers expect them to take an active role in participation in Christmas if they didn’t know how to do it?
Rosie had therefore come to the conclusion that real families celebrated Christmas this way. With all of the fuss and insanity.
The girls at school seemed eager enough to return home for the Christmas holidays. She’d heard more stories than she’d care to admit about favorite traditions and customs, some of them truly ridiculous, and had had none to share in return.
Her imagination had served her well there.
According to the girls at school now, the Gerrard family had Christmases truly worth envying.
Not one of those so-called traditions had happened yet, and Rosie didn’t know if the things she had shared were even Christmas traditions at all. To be perfectly honest with herself, she only remembered one or two of the things she had shared. She was willing to bet that no one would inquire after them when she returned to Kent, but as of this moment, she would have nothing to share about what her family really had done.
Real families celebrated Christmas together in meaningful ways.
What did that make them?
“Come on,” Rosie said to her sisters, shaking her bleak thoughts away. “Colin wants us to put on a theatrical, and we can do that. Maybe that will make Christmas real.”
“You think so?” Bitty asked, seeming close to tears.
“I don’t know, Bitty,” Rosie answered honestly. “I don’t know much about Christmas. But we can make this our gift to Colin, right?”
Her sister smiled. “Yes, we can.”
Ginny twisted her mouth. “What about my hair?”
Rosie gave her a look. “I will make you give me some, little girl. Mark my words.”
Ginny smirked and clambered up from the floor. “You can try.” She tilted her head. “Will we have costumes tonight?”
Blast. That was something Rosie hadn’t considered, and it seemed a rather stupid omission at this moment.
“Yes,” she said quickly. “Yes, as soon as we finish rehearsal, I will go and get some.”
Ginny nodded primly and moved to stand in an open area of the room, which would serve as the stage for now.
“She’s turning more into you every day,” Rosie muttered to Bitty, who was watching Ginny curiously.
Bitty gave her sister a distinctly derisive expression. “Did you hear her when she snapped at Colin and Kit? That girl is all you, Rosie, and you know it.” Bitty left her side to go to Ginny, pretending to have Ginny tell her where to stand.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Rosie muttered under her breath. She heaved a heavy sigh and walked over to her sisters. “Ginny, you remember how the show starts?”
Ginny nodded and took a measured three steps to her left. “I stand right here, and let the little ones be adorable.”
Bitty snorted a laugh and covered her mouth quickly when Rosie glared at her.
“Very good, Ginny,” Rosie told her as she returned her attention to her youngest sister. “Go ahead then.”
Things were even worse than she’d thought.
Not only were her sisters incapable of following instructions, but they also couldn’t remember their lines.
At all.
Even the ones they had written themselves.
If this theatrical was supposed to be a gift for her brothers, they would be cast out for giving the most terrible gift that had ever been known to mankind.
And for Gerrards, she was quite sure that would be a rather impressive feat.
She’d escaped the abysmal rehearsal with the claim that she needed to find the appropriate costumes for them all. It was a true statement, but more of an excuse than anything else.
She didn’t even know if they had anything remotely resembling costumes in this house.
Benbridge was a grand old estate, and she liked it immensely, but it was only the second time she had been here, and she really hadn’t explored it all that much the last time she had come. She’d completely ignored the history lesson Kit had given them two years ago on this house, so she had no idea how much time the family had even spent here in the past. She had a hard time imagining Colin and Kit putting on theatricals for Loughton and their mother, but she supposed it was possible.
This was the sort of house that would be grand for entertaining, if one wished to entertain in Yorkshire, so it could have been that the late Lady Loughton had enjoyed doing so, and perhaps there had been theatricals there.
She paused as she considered that her mother had technically been a Lady Loughton. Not officially, considering she’d never acknowledged the title, and Loughton had never presented her to anybody as such. But if the marriage between her parents had been valid, which she still doubted from time to time, she would have naturally been a Lady Loughton.
That was a sobering thought.
She would never consider her as such, and she suspected her mother would never have done so either. She had simply been Louise Bouchard Gerrard, and that was all she had cared about.
Sometimes she wondered about her mother’s past and family, as she knew so little of it. Had they other family in France or elsewhere in Europe? Were they really as poor as her mother had been? Or had she somehow been cast off and found her own way in the world?
Well, that path had led her to Loughton, and despite being the means to Rosie, Bitty, and Ginny being in existence, she did not see much by way of advantage there.
But that was neither here nor there.
Costumes were the important thing here.
That and the utterly abysmal theatrical that loomed before her.
They were short on time, and she knew it well. Colin was putting some rather significant emphasis on the meal they were to have this evening, which was something that was well within Colin’s natural inclinations, but this was different. She half expected some grand announcement to occur at the meal, but that would take away from their consumption of the meal, and Colin would not like that.
After the meal, they would be expected to perform.
A cold sweat began to form on her brow and she picked up her pace down the long corridor of the family rooms.
“Costumes,” she muttered to herself. “If I were costumes, where would I…?” She caught sight of Mrs. Donovan, the kindly housekeeper, and sighed. “Mrs. Donovan!”
The dark-haired woman turned with a warm smile. “Miss Gerrard, can I help you with something?”
Oh, where was she to begin? But this was no time for getting into the deeper issues at hand.
“Yes,” Rosie said quickly. “My brothers have tasked us with putting on a theatrical tonight.”
Mrs. Donovan clasped her hands before her. “Oh, that should be lovely! I do love a good theatrical.”
Then she would undoubtedly hate theirs.
Rosie tried for a smile. “My sisters are working on their parts now, but I wondered if you knew of any costumes or old clothing items we might be able to use.”
“Hmm,” Mrs. Donovan mused, looking thoughtful. “It has been quite a long time since any sort of theatrical was performed in this house, though it was a very popular amusement once. I wonder what became of those things.”
Dread hit Rosie squarely in the stomach, and she knew her expression showed it.
Mrs. Donovan smiled at her. “I’ll tell you what, Miss Gerrard. I’ll pull some of the maids from whatever it is they’re doing and we’ll see if we can’t find some things for you and the others to use. Is there anything in particular you will need?”
Rosie shook her head, her despair ebbing the smallest bit. “Not really. I will take anything that can be found and make it work.”
Mrs. Donovan nodded in encouragement. “That’s the spirit, dear. It might even spark your creativity more to use what you’ve got.”
“It might,” Rosie replied with a false smile.
She didn’t think anything would spark her creativity unless it was an already written theatrical with parts and costumes described in great detail. She could be very creative under those circumstances.
Not these.
Mrs. Donovan watched Rosie carefully, then asked, “Is everything all right, Miss Gerrard?”
Rosie’s head snapped up and she looked at the housekeeper wildly for a moment. Then she forced her most perfect smile. “Yes, Mrs. Donovan, everything is perfectly fine. I’m only anxious for Christmas.”
It was painfully obvious that she did not believe Rosie for one second, but she was not going to ask about it.
She only nodded kindly. “Very well, then. If you’ll excuse me, Miss Gerrard, I will see to finding some costumes for you.” She bobbed a curtsey, and moved on down the hallway.
It was still odd to Rosie to have grown women curtseying to her when she was only fourteen, but that was the way things worked here, and someday she supposed she wouldn’t think anything of it.
Rosie shook her head and marched down the corridor, a glower forming.
Whatever joy she had hoped to attain with Christmas and all its celebrations had long since vanished in the face of the more realistic hope to not kill anyone this Christmas.
She wasn’t prone to wishing anyone dead, and she did not at this moment have that wish either.
But it wasn’t something she was going to rule out either.
She turned for the stairs and started down, feeling disgruntled and disappointed, and wishing Christmas could just be over and done with. Then perhaps she could enjoy what remaining time she had with her family before returning to school.
She missed the order and structure that school provided her, and life at Miss Masters was so much simpler and more manageable.
Life with her siblings and their children was just complicated.
There wasn’t anyone about when she reached the main floor, which was unusual. When they’d gone upstairs to escape another boring speech from Kit, or from feeling the wrath of his surprising temper, the adults had been in the large drawing room with the children. With how invested Colin and Kit seemed to be in absolutely everything they could think of that might resemble Christmas, she expected them to be instructing Rafe, Matthew, and Livvy in the finer points of tying up holly boughs.
Although as she looked around the grand entryway, she highly doubted any further greenery was needed.
It seemed they would be living in a greenhouse for the foreseeable future.
Her brothers were good men, probably some of the best, but sometimes she thought they just might be the slightest bit mad.
But if they were not around…
Rosie smirked to herself and quietly moved towards Colin’s study.
There was an actual mountain of gifts in this room and she had been interrupted from her investigation of them earlier by the appearance of Susannah and the children. If no one was about, then there would be no one to stop her from looking at them now.
It was not as though there would be harm in it. They were all wrapped tightly and tied with ribbons. She would never be able to see what was inside, and no surprise would be ruined if that could not happen.
She was not skilled enough in wrapping to be able to rewrap anything she opened, and she was not foolish enough to start trying to improve that skill now.
She was, as it happened, rather skilled in deduction, and she had no doubt she would be able to say with some confidence what presents everyone would be receiving just by observing the shape and size, weight, and general feeling of each present. Some shaking was required in a few cases, but only to further the investigative process.
The details of each item would be left for the unveiling, it was true, and she was content with that. It made no difference to her if Bitty received a blue dress or green, or what specific book Freddie would receive. It satisfied her enough to know that they would be receiving those things.
Not that it was a very great stretch of the imagination to predict that those two would be receiving those exact gifts from someone or other.
That was the easiest assumption known to man.
But what would she be receiving?
She smirked as she approached the study. She prided herself on being a trifle difficult when it came to gifts. She didn’t mean to be fastidious with her likes and dislikes, and she couldn’t have said if there was any rhyme or reason to it. She just had very specific tastes, and not everyone knew where her lines were drawn.
It was odd that so many presents should be here for their Christmas. As she understood it from her friends who actually had experience with celebrating Christmas in a grand fashion, gifts were usually small trinkets and things that were already needed. There were exceptions, of course, as some of the wealthier, more spoiled girls admitted without shame, but the focus of most celebrations at Christmas tended to be of a religious nature.
Gerrards were not religious by nature, and considering she had endured Colin’s horrific and forced rendition of the Advent four days in a row instead of four Sundays in a row, it was easy to understand why.
There was not much she could see that was religious about a massive pile of gifts, but she was not about to complain for having such an aberration from tradition in their midst.
She grabbed the handle to the room and wished faintly that it would not be locked before twisting it.
The door opened and her heart leapt with excitement.
Then it all came crashing down when the room she had so desired to enter was completely devoid of anything remotely resembling gifts.
On second thought, she might have to kill Colin. She doubted anyone would miss him overly much expect Susannah, and she wanted to kill him on occasion herself.
Could one temporarily kill a person?
Rosie entered the room fully and stood in the center, putting her hands on her hips and turning slightly.
The presents had been right here, she could see them in her mind as clearly as she had seen them by sight. She was standing exactly where two large presents had been for Cat and Daphne, which made little sense, as they were infants. Well, Cat had turned one just the week before, but that hardly seemed a significant distinction at this point.
Where had the presents gone?
Rosie had seen Colin’s panicked expression about Ginny’s trying to put Humphrey in the study earlier, which had prompted her to see why, and she did not believe for one moment that Father Christmas had come early.
Father Christmas had never come to them before, why would they start that now?
The sight of the presents had sent Rosie into a panic, wondering if that was indicative of what was expected by way of gifts. Not that she or her sisters could possibly match anything of that magnitude, but there had obviously been a great deal of effort exerted in them.
Rosie hadn’t even thought of presents until she’d been home from school.
After seeing the gifts in this room, now it was all she could think about. More concerning the presents for herself than what to give the others, she freely admitted, and she could have used the distraction of her own presents right about now.
Where did they go?”
“What do you think you are doing in here?”