Secrets at Rosehill
by Kathryn Brown
CHAPTER ONE
My husband knew exactly how I liked my
coffee: strong, with a small amount of milk; and he never failed to deliver.
Every morning since our wedding two years previously, Marcus had insisted on fetching
my morning tipple to me in bed. Quite often expecting more than breakfast, I
would sit up as he would lean over me, our arms outstretched, and he would
tumble onto the empty space beside me. Suffice to say, mornings were perhaps my
favourite part of the day. A wake up call from my dear husband made for a
fulfilling day ahead, even if week days were spent apart.
Marcus had been fortunate enough to find employment with a
High school in the area. His love for physical education gave him a head’s up
on the vacancy that serendipitously became available. A supply teacher on the
books, but seemingly a full time job in reality. It gave us something to talk
about at the end of the day, and gave Marcus something to focus on besides my
constant stream of clients.
Life at Rosehill had taken a turn; the people in the village
had, over the last two years, accepted my gift of mediumship and as new
parishioners moved in, they decided it wasn’t quite so bad to have such
controversy living within the perimeter. They told their friends who also told
theirs. My client-base grew and I found myself with a full diary week after
week, enabling me to continue to fulfil my love for our spirit world. Asking
only for a donation to a local charity, this made my new friends understand
that my passion to help others with their grief outshone any need for payment.
And so a friend I’d made in the last two years, a beautiful woman named
Joannie, decided to set up a rescue centre for abandoned pets. My charity work
complete, together we brought new life and a sense of community to the village.
When I first moved to Rosehill, only four years ago yet
feeling like a lifetime since, I wasn’t altogether accepted and was scorned by
many of the older villagers once they discovered I talk to dead people. It took
time for them to smile and greet me as I walked into their haven; they would
often snub me when I stopped at the village shop for a paper or a need to feed
my chocolate habit. I ignored their aloofness, knowing they would one day turn
to me when they had a desire to contact a loved one from their seat on the
spirit plane. I would go about my business unaffected by them, until the day
arrived when Marcus and I announced our plans to marry.
I could feel the village stir from my reading room at
Rosehill. People scurried from door to door, knocking in desperation to convey
the news. The gossips of the village had awoken. Marcus, once having been the
village Reverend, had made friends with his parishioners, good friends with
some. He was a popular member of the community; people respected him. Some went
to him for help and advice, others to simply show off their baking skills. They
knew he would never turn them away, no matter what he was doing. It’s fair to
say life with Marcus in those early days could be quite strained, particularly
if we’d made plans only to find an unexpected issue standing in his hallway,
seeking his guidance. But my love for him was strong and nothing would ever
come between us. He would look at me and wink, often with his chest hairs
protruding slightly from the opening of his shirt which I’d just started to
unbutton before the interruption. Many a night was disturbed, and one could
fairly say I came second in his life back then. Perhaps his love for God was
stronger in those days, but his dear late wife helped him to understand that he
was missing out on a lifetime of love; real love from a human being.
Leaving the church was an upheaval, I can’t deny that. He had
second, third and fourth thoughts after speaking with the Bishop. I went
through a phase of being sure he would never go ahead with his plan to go back
to teaching, but I should never have doubted a determined man. The parishioners
were of course in shock and another door-knocking week transpired. The phone at
Rosehill was hot with calls as people rang to ask me if the vicar’s decision to
leave and live at the mansion on the hill was indeed true. I am somewhat
ashamed to say I took great pleasure in telling some that yes, it was most
definitely true. Their silence told me everything I needed to know. Change in
the village of Brannington just wasn’t accepted, yet here was their most
trusted upholder of the community instigating a new era in their lives. It took
some getting used to, not least our relationship becoming an overnight subject
of gossip, but Marcus held his head up high, moved into the house, and together
we welcomed the new parish Reverend over a gathering at Rosehill.
Villagers graced the front entrance as both Marcus and I
greeted them like old friends. We shook hands with most, whilst some - our good
friend Alice Baxter, the mother of my half-sister, and Julia, Marcus’s
sister-in-law from his first marriage - held us close as they gave us their
best wishes for a blessed future.
It went without saying that Julia found our marriage news
somewhat difficult to digest, but after much talking with Marcus who was an
outlet for her continuous grief over the death of her sister, we finally put
our differences behind us. I was thrilled when Julia invited us both round for
dinner the following evening, and I listened to her confirm her fear of losing
the one man she truly loved. I had no idea how close she and Marcus were until
he opened his heart one night, sat in front of an open fire with three sheep
dogs slouching at our feet, and told me that Julia had been the only person not
to lay blame on him for Anne’s death. They had got through the whole ordeal
together and were perpetually protective of each other. Their love was
unconditional and that was indeed something I had to live with. Although not
blood relatives, they were more like brother and sister than I’ve ever known
any two people to be.
It turned out that Julia and I became good friends. At aged
sixty-four, seventeen years my senior, it was perhaps unusual that we had so
much in common, but Julia was a young sixty-four year old; her freelance
journalism took her around the country where she would report on today’s youth,
which inevitably kept her young. I often wondered if she would have liked to turn
back the clock, to live her life again in a new age, but she was wise, too wise
for me, and she would, over time, become my surrogate big sister.
Six months ago, Julia was offered what she described as the
job of a lifetime. Upon meeting a top executive at a London based newspaper
office known as The Thames Daily, Andrew Peters-Brown presented her with a
contract of employment before handing over a company car and the keys to a
rather plush apartment overlooking the River Thames. Julia didn’t need to think
twice; she knew an opportunity like this wouldn’t come her way again,
particularly at her age. She signed the contract, put her little cottage up for
sale and bid the village farewell. Marcus helped her to move, reporting back to
me how incredible her new home was and how happy she seemed to be. He described
her new boss as ‘quite debonair’ but something told me he was also quite
pretentious. As was usually the case when someone close to me drew an image in
my mind of a person I would probably never meet, my third eye was awakened and
I asked my spirit guides to help me see this man and learn more about the
apparent sophistication that had captured Julia’s imagination.
I feared what I saw. I still do not know if I was wrong in
keeping the truth from Julia and Marcus, but Andrew Peters-Brown was not all he
seemed. I saw a line of attractive women vying for his attention as they
clattered about apartment buildings scantily clad; men handing over wads of
cash in return for what looked like cassette tapes. It made me believe he was
not to be trusted. I toyed with the idea of revealing my thoughts to Marcus but
I could also see how Julia’s face was constantly lit up; she was happy and who
was I to destroy that?
We missed having her nearby in the village and I missed my
friend. We had other friends of course, my pet rescue companion being one.
Joannie and her husband Patrick moved into Julia’s cottage, so it was a comfort
to know that her homely building had been taken over by two people I was
particularly fond of. Joannie’s love for animals and Patrick’s love for keeping
fit are what brought us together and we would spend many an evening drinking
whisky and wine whilst chatting about current affairs. Fortunately, both
accepted my mediumship and even though Patrick wasn’t interested in knowing the
whereabouts of his beloved passed relatives, Joannie was more than fascinated.
One night we held a séance and my late friend Lucy came
through, scowling at Joannie all the while as she silently asked, ‘Who’s this?’
I laughed as I was telling Joannie about my faithful friend and assured Lucy
that no one would ever take her place in the best-friend ranks. Nodding her
approval, Lucy left us in peace, moving away from my vision as another
well-known spirit stepped forward.
‘My mother is here,’ I told Joannie. ‘I have no idea why she’s
come through tonight as I was hoping this reading would beckon your loved ones.’
Mother had been watching Joannie and I form our friendship and
simply wanted to give her blessing. At forty-seven years old, I was still
treated like a child by those who loved me, but I didn’t mind. I knew she meant
well. And so, with both Lucy and my mother’s approval, my friendship with
Joannie grew stronger, as did Marcus’s friendship with Patrick. It was important
to us to have good friends nearby, people we could trust after everything we’d
been through since Marcus’s decision to bow out of the clergy. The reasons for
his resignation were never discussed outside Rosehill, for he deemed it
inappropriate to talk about his belief in the spirit world when so many people
relied on his Christian faith.
Fortunately, most people who had looked up to Marcus as a
Reverend, acknowledged his desire to change profession. There were of course
some who relentlessly ridiculed him for a change in direction and accused him
of pandering to his new bride’s demands. Sadly, some had passed away under the
assumption that Marcus would conduct their funeral, and I suspect their
disappointment when their beloved vicar failed to turn up in his cassock was
too much for them to bear, as I have not seen or heard from them since their
demise.
Marcus did, however, read the eulogy at Alice Baxter’s
funeral, the first friend I made in the village upon taking residence at
Rosehill. Alice became a regular visitor to the house and we helped her all we
could during her last weeks on earth. Her passing wasn’t a sad occasion because
my father waited patiently by her bedside, his hand touching hers, a ghostly
smile dancing on her thin, frail lips. Marcus and I were sat with her when she
passed over, and I whispered into her ear, ‘Harold is here.’ Within seconds she
had gone. A beautiful ball of light shone before us, reducing in size as
Alice’s soul gracefully departed the earth plane to commence its journey with
the man she’d loved with all her heart.
I knew she hadn’t suffered, for the smile wouldn’t have been
so significant if she had. Even the nurse commented on how at peace Alice
looked as she took her final breath. As the floating white ball reduced to a
pin prick of light, my half-sister Jane presented before me, smiling and
looking from me to her mother. She mouthed the words, “Thank you,” which I
acknowledged, returning the smile as I watched her also disappear from my
vision.
Marcus did Alice proud, as I knew he would. A few scorned
ghostly faces hovered at the back of the church, wanting to know why Alice was
so special. But we hadn’t told anyone about her love affair with Harold Baxter
- my father and her brother-in-law. We decided it best to keep that part of
Alice’s life the secret she had kept herself for forty-five years. We knew
Harold, Alice and Jane would always visit Rosehill. After all, Harold had once
lived here and considered it to be his home for eternity. Alice did visit me from
time to time, and she even told me about her friend, Diana McIntosh from the
village, a woman to watch due to her love for a resounding gossip. I laughed at
Alice and assured her any gossip I was privy to would never leave the walls of
Rosehill, and any gossip I told in return would be of the utmost respect, not
at all painting people in a darkened light. Of course Alice, enjoying a good
gossip herself, would often sit in on coffee mornings with Diana and me,
shaking her head and nodding in the right places, prompting me to tell her
friend about people she’d met in the spirit world who were no better there than
they were on the earth plane. I did enjoy those get-togethers; I just wished
Diana could have seen Alice too.
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