After the housemaid passed, the two shared a long look, then Rosa turned away. He took her arm, but she jerked free and followed the maid upstairs.
Anne retreated to Lady Celia’s door and picked up the tray. When Jane offered to take it down for her, Anne thanked the maid and watched as Rosa walked toward her own door.
“Good evening, Rosa.”
“Miss Anne.”
She waited, but Rosa apparently had no instructions to pass along to her. Anne had not really expected she would.
Concerned, Anne walked over and lowered her voice,“Rosa, is Dr. Finch ... pressuring you, or making unwanted advances?”
The girl burst out laughing. “Pressuring me, yes. Advances, no!” She continued into her room and shut the door without explaining.
8
Anne had put off going to her grandparents’ house. Other people lived there now and she’d not been ready to see the dear place altered, preferring to keep alive memories of the happy second home it had once been to her.
After nearly three weeks in Painswick, Anne decided she had postponed long enough. So the next afternoon, while Lady Celia and Louie were both resting, she went out for a walk with that specific destination in mind.
Allowing the warm sunshine and fresh air to bolster her, she strolled along St. Mary’s Street, the churchyard on one side, and on the other, stone cottages festooned with ivy or climbing roses.
Beyond the main streets of town, smaller lanes sloped down toward the stream with its many mills. Anne turned right at the first of these lanes, passed under the dangling heart sign of the Golden Heart Inn, and descended the steep slope of Tibbiwell Lane. Her own heart aching, she stopped outside the house where her grandparents used to live. The charming cottage was fronted by a narrow flower gardenwithin a low stone wall. Oh, the happy hours she had spent there over the years, from girlhood to young adulthood.
A woman was standing in the garden with shallow basket and shears, cutting roses from her grandmother’s prized rosebushes. Each metallic snip of the shears was another jab to Anne’s heart.Atleast the roses are still there, she comforted herself.
Noticing her loitering, the woman gave Anne a friendly smile.
“Good day. May I ... help you with something?”
Self-consciousness flooded Anne. “Oh. No, sorry. I was only reminiscing. My grandparents used to live here.”
“Ah! Thomas and Sarah Spring?”
“That’s right. You certainly keep the garden in good order. That would make my grandmother happy.”And me too.
“I’m glad. Many of these plants were already well established when we bought the place. I add a few annuals now and again but mostly tend to the perennials already here.” The woman lifted her basket. “Her roses are doing well this year.”
“So I see.”
The woman looked up with kindly eyes. “Would you like to come in and see the house again?”
“Oh, thank you, but I don’t wish to intrude.”
“Not at all.” She grinned. “If you’re going to walk down memory lane, you might as well go all the way to the end.”
“Very well. Just for a few minutes. If you’re sure you don’t mind.”
“It would be a pleasure, Miss ...?”
“Loveday. Anne Loveday.”
“And I am Mrs. Baylis. Do come in.”
Anne followed the woman inside and immediately breathed in the familiar aroma: the mingled scent of woodsmoke, fresh herbs, and old books. How did it still linger?
“We have not changed much,” the woman said, “though we did remove a wall to make this sitting room larger.”
Her grandfather’s small study. Gone. Yet Anne had to admit it was an improvement. “It looks well.”
