Rose by Holly Webb Read Free Book Online Page B

shops, of course, but there are the odd things. I need some more silver polish for a start, as we seem to have almost run out.”
    Rose tried not to look guilty. She and Bill had been rather lavish with it the day before.
    Mrs. Jones was drinking her midmorning tea, reading her newspaper, and tutting. “Little boy gone missing from right outside his house, Miss Bridges, isn’t that sad? Mind you, it’ll be the parents’ fault. People should take better care, that’s what I say. And another revolution in one of them Far Eastern places. I don’t know what the world’s coming to, I’m sure I don’t.”
    â€œQuite.” Miss Bridges indicated her list. “Do you have any commissions for Rose, Mrs. Jones?”
    Mrs. Jones brightened immediately. “Oh, now, let me see. Yes, if Rose is going to the grocer’s, Miss Bridges, I need some more of those crystallized violets. You know how partial Miss Isabella is to those, and they’re quite gone.” She added to Miss Bridges’ list with a pencil stub from her apron pocket. “And she could go to the fishmonger’s about that crab. They’re only around the corner. She can give them this note. I will not be fobbed off with that pathetic little specimen. Crab, indeed. A fat spider, that’s what it was.” She scribbled industriously.
    â€œYou will be careful, won’t you, Rose dear? You’re not used to those busy streets. You find a policeman and get him to help you cross. You’d better draw her a map, Miss Bridges. You’ve more of a sense for directions than I have.” She looked up and sucked the end of her pencil thoughtfully. “Or better yet, send Bill with her the first time she’s out, don’t you think?”
    Miss Bridges looked doubtful. “Perhaps.”
    Bill appeared at the door from the back kitchen, looking innocent and with a smear of boot polish on his nose. “Did you want me, miss?”
    Miss Bridges eyed him consideringly. “Very well. You can accompany Rose, but you’re to take her straight to the fishmonger’s, no dawdling about with those unsuitable friends of yours. Go and put your proper livery on. And, Rose, fetch your cloak.”
    Rose had no idea what Miss Bridges was talking about, but when Bill came back two minutes later, she discovered that livery meant a black jacket with greeny-gold frogging all across the front and a rather odd-shaped hat.
    â€œDon’t you dare laugh,” Bill hissed in her ear, as they endured another set of instructions from Mrs. Jones. Miss Bridges had gone back to her room to write a sternly worded letter to the chimney sweep about the presence of a bird’s nest in the drawing-room chimney.
    Mrs. Jones bustled about, finding Rose a basket, and telling them to put the polish and the violets on the Fountain account at the grocer. Then she looked a little cautiously out of the kitchen toward Miss Bridges’ door and handed them each a penny from the knitted purse she kept in one of the jelly molds. “Buy yourself some bull’s-eyes, Rose, or something nice. Bill, you are not to buy that horrid pink sherbet stuff. I will not have you being sick all over my kitchen like you were last time I gave you money for sweets.”
    Bill shook his head, as if sherbet was the furthest thing from his mind. “Come on, then,” he told Rose, bowing to her as she walked out onto the area steps as though she were a duchess.
    Rose stalked past him with her nose in the air, trying not to giggle. “Which way do we go?” she asked him eagerly, as the area gate clanged to behind them. It sent a shudder of delicious excitement running down Rose’s spine. They were off, out on their own, and she even had a penny to spend!
    Bill gave her a superior look. “This way, mouse, and don’t you show me up.”
    â€œDon’t need to,” Rose retorted. “Have you seen what that