Rose's Story Read online

  Thomas Kinkade

  The Girls of Lighthouse Lane

  Rose’s Story

  A Cape Light Novel

  By Erika Tamar

  Contents

  Map

  Prologue

  Rose Forbes was flushed with happiness. The most popular group…

  One

  “Pull it tighter, Momma!” Rose inhaled and clutched the bedpost…

  Two

  “Class, this is Rose Forbes,” Miss Cotter, the teacher, announced.

  Three

  Rose, Kat, Lizabeth, and Amanda walked from school along William…

  Four

  The smell of hay and the deep, moist breaths of…

  Five

  The four girls walked from Clayton Stables toward Lighthouse Lane…

  Six

  The next day, just before sunrise, Rose met Aunt Norma…

  Seven

  When Rose and Kat arrived at the stables that afternoon,…

  Eight

  Rose came home from the stable one evening and called,…

  Nine

  Rose listened to Reverend Morgan in church on Sunday morning.

  Ten

  Kat didn’t come to the stables every afternoon anymore. Rose…

  Eleven

  Rose leaned against the side of the stall as Star…

  Twelve

  The front parlor was freshly painted a pale yellow. The…

  Thirteen

  Rose saw signs for the horse fair posted all around…

  Fourteen

  They left Amanda and Lizabeth’s bicycles at the Cranberry station…

  Fifteen

  “That big white building in the distance,” Rose said. “Is…

  Sixteen

  “My mother is a bloomer girl. A suffragette.”

  Seventeen

  Rose was at the stables before dawn on Saturday. She…

  Eighteen

  The back of a horse was the one place where…

  About the Authors

  Other Books by Thomas Kinkade and Erika Tamar

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Map

  Prologue

  November 10, 1905

  New York City

  Rose Forbes was flushed with happiness. The most popular group in ninth grade at Miss Dalyrumple’s Institute for Young Ladies had accepted her after-school invitation.

  “You can leave your schoolbooks on the hall table,” Rose said as she led the other six girls inside her Gramercy Park apartment.

  Abigail had visited before, but this was the first time the whole crowd had come to her house. Abigail, of course, and Elinor, Margaret, Patience, Claire, and Sue-Ellen.

  The maid was standing by with her arms full of their coats. “Bridget, could you please bring us some of those lace cookies?” Rose said. “We’ll be in the parlor. Thank you. Oh—and does anyone want hot cocoa?”

  Everyone nodded. It was a cold November day and hot cocoa was just perfect, Rose thought. And she’d show them the stereoscope viewer. They’d like that. Later they might gather around the pianola.

  She was one of them now! She’d never thought that would happen. In the secret slam book that had been passed around Miss Dalyrumple’s, her classmates had written “kind” and “quiet” on Rose’s page. Nothing terrible, but she sounded like someone easily forgotten. One of the meaner girls did write, “Rose thinks she’s a horse.” It was true that sometimes Rose forgot herself and galloped at recess, with her long black hair turning into a flowing mane. But her riding class at the Equestrian Center was the best part of her week, and look how it had turned out—it had led her right into this brand-new popularity!

  One day, Abigail Anderson joined Rose’s riding class at the Equestrian Center and everything changed. Pretty, self-confident Abigail was always in the center of things at Miss Dalyrumple’s. The other girls would crowd around to hear her whispers. Peals of laughter surrounded Abigail. And suddenly, Rose and Abigail had riding in common and lots to talk about! When Abigail decided to include Rose in her group, it was heaven. But Rose liked Abigail most when it was just the two of them poring over Rose’s horse scrapbooks and dreaming of having horses of their own one day. Often in front of the others, Abigail could be bossy and sharp-tongued.

  Rose showed her new friends into the pretty red parlor. Momma’s portrait hung over the marble mantel. It had been painted by an artist-patient of Poppa’s, in place of a cash payment. The style suited Momma’s long-lashed, huge dark eyes, shining black hair, and ivory skin, all glorious against black velvet.

  “Is that your mother?” Claire asked.

  “She’s beautiful,” Sue-Ellen breathed. “She doesn’t even look like somebody’s mother.”

  Rose felt warm with pride until she felt Abigail staring critically at her.

  “You do have the same coloring,” Abigail said. “Too bad your features are so different.”

  Rose had Momma’s eyes—Poppa called them flashing gypsy eyes—but she had the Forbes nose, and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it. Resentment of Abigail’s words simmered inside her.

  Abigail had been snappy with Rose all day. At riding class yesterday afternoon Rose had been singled out for praise. But that couldn’t be Abigail’s reason, Rose thought—could it?

  The visit was going well. The girls enjoyed looking into the stereoscope viewer; Rose had hundreds of cards showing foreign countries and exotic people and all sorts of things. It was amazing the way two cards could become a three-dimensional picture that looked so real.

  The girls were in the front hall, on the way to Rose’s room, when Momma came striding in—straight from a suffragette parade on Fifth Avenue! Rose hadn’t expected that; not today! And Momma was wearing bloomers! The long, loose trousers that billowed down to tight gathers at Momma’s ankles were splattered with fruit stains! Rotten fruit had been thrown at her—Rose could smell it! And a streak of dirt was across Momma’s forehead. But instead of looking embarrassed, she was flushed with excitement.

  She greeted the girls, shrugged off her appearance, and rambled on about Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. “They’re the founders of the voting rights movement,” she said, “and I encourage all of you to read their pamphlets. Right here on the hall table—please help yourself. And take some for your sisters, too. The movement needs brave young women just like you.” She looked around at their stunned faces and smiled. “Women will get the vote one day and we’ll just go on demonstrating and protesting until Congress finally makes it a law.” Then she laughed prettily, all dimples, and said, “I do think I need a bath! Excuse me, girls.”

  Six pairs of eyes stared at Momma as she flounced away. Only Rose kept her eyes down. She didn’t know where to look. After Momma was out of sight, there was an awful, endless, heavy silence.

  Abigail broke it. “That was the strangest spectacle I ever saw.” Her words dripped acid. “What’s wrong with your mother?”

  “Nothing!” Rose said. How dare this girl—this girl who was too quick to use her whip when a horse couldn’t understand her poor commands—how dare she call her sweet, kind, beautiful mother a spectacle!

  “Bloomers are disgusting and vulgar!” Abigail looked around at the others, her eyebrows raised. “There has to be something seriously wrong with her.”

  No one talked about Rose’s family that way! “There’s nothing wrong with my mother! What’s wrong with yours?”

  Abigail’s eyes narrowed. There was a gasp from the others.

  “Just exactly what do you mean?” Abigail asked icily.

  “I don’t think you can afford to talk about other people’s mothers when your own staggers about from too much Pinkham’s To
nic for Ladies!”

  In a flash, Rose knew the wrong words had come tumbling out of her mouth. Mrs. Anderson did stagger and she did swallow pints of Pinkham’s to medicate her “women’s troubles.” Everyone knew it had exceptionally high alcohol content. But, true or not, Rose wished she could take her words back. It was too late.

  An enraged Abigail was a bad enemy to have. Everyone in school followed her lead and they all stopped speaking to Rose. She became invisible—except when people whispered behind their hands and stared at her.

  The silent treatment was painful. Rose tried to talk to Abigail about horses again, but Abigail looked past her and through her. And when Rose offered to help Patience with her arithmetic—she’d helped her before and Patience had always been grateful—Patience glanced nervously at Abigail and hissed, “Scat! Leave me alone.” It was all Momma’s fault.

  Rose had nothing against the idea of women getting the vote, but it got people too riled up. Momma could be so charming that some people forgave her eccentricities, but why didn’t she stop to think that Poppa was a doctor with a society practice? When word of her antics got out, Poppa’s practice, along with dinner invitations, dwindled.

  Rose hoped that the Abigail incident would blow over, at least with some of her classmates, and it almost did—Sue-Ellen started acting friendly again. But only a week later, there was a scandal more horrible than anything Rose could have imagined—Momma was arrested! And put in handcuffs like a common criminal! Rose was quite sure Momma was the only Dalyrumple mother who was ever jailed. There was an article in the New York Daily Mirror for everyone in New York City to read! Now the Forbes family was avoided by anyone who mattered. In school, Rose became a permanent outcast. Her loneliness felt like a bad disease that knotted her stomach.

  When Aunt Norma, Momma’s sister, and Uncle Ned came to New York City for their annual Christmas visit, they talked about how badly Poppa’s practice had been affected by the scandal.

  “Why don’t you consider moving to Cape Light?” Uncle Ned asked. “There’s a real need for a doctor. The closest one is in Cranberry and that’s really too far.”

  “That could be interesting,” Poppa said. “What do you think, Miranda?”

  “I don’t know,” Momma said. “It would be a huge change for us. For one thing, it would mean pulling Rose out of her school.”

  “I wouldn’t mind that at all,” Rose said. She had never told her parents about being shunned. It would hurt Momma to know that she’d been the cause of it.

  “You liked Cape Light, didn’t you, Rose?” Aunt Norma asked.

  Rose nodded. She knew that Cape Light was a tiny peninsula in Massachusetts jutting into the Atlantic Ocean. She’d visited there on a one-week vacation back when she was ten. She had discovered riding at Aunt Norma and Uncle Ned’s stables. The wonderful Clayton Stables! Otherwise, all she really remembered was the lighthouse that was visible from every part of the town. She’d always wondered what it was like inside.

  It would be very strange to live in a small fishing village, but Cape Light could be her escape from Miss Dalyrumple’s Institute for Young Ladies.

  one

  March 19, 1906

  Cape Light

  “Pull it tighter, Momma!” Rose inhaled and clutched the bedpost with both hands as her mother laced up her new corset. If she could manage to hold her breath, maybe they could cinch her waist by another inch.

  “I’m not about to cut off your air supply,” Momma said. “Please,” Rose begged. “Only for this morning.” Starting at a new school in a new town in the middle of the semester was hard. She had to look her best and acquiring a waistline would certainly help. “Please, Momma. I don’t need air!”

  “If you can’t breathe, you can’t think, Rose.” Momma smiled. “And you do need a working brain in school, don’t you?”

  Why did Momma look amused? There was nothing funny about this!

  “You’ve just turned fourteen—why do you feel you have to rush into that awful contraption?” Momma went on.

  Easy for her to say, Rose thought. Momma had the perfect hourglass figure without even trying! Rose was tall and skinny and absolutely straight up and down. Every move Momma made was graceful. Every move Rose made put her in immediate danger of tripping over her too-big feet. It wasn’t fair.

  “It’s bad enough that grown women are willing to torture their bodies into unnatural shapes, but—”

  “All right, all right!” Rose interrupted. Momma was winding up to make one of her speeches and this morning, of all mornings, Rose couldn’t bear to hear a word of it.

  “—and the restraints of corsets and long, heavy skirts…well, as Amelia Bloomer said, that’s tied in with denying the vote to women. Keeping them helpless and—”

  “I know all about it,” Rose muttered. If she never heard the name Amelia Bloomer again, it would be too soon. Sometimes it seemed that the suffragette who wore pantaloons as everyday outer clothing, of all things, had moved right into their household. How awful to go down in history with bloomers named for you, Rose thought, even if they were supposed to give women freedom of movement. Though Miss Bloomer had died in 1894, more than ten years ago, Momma quoted her every other day!

  “You know that corsets displace internal organs, don’t you?” Momma was saying. “And interfere with digestion? And—”

  “I know all that and I don’t care!” Rose crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked pointedly at the door. “I have to get dressed for school.”

  Momma hesitated with her hand on the doorknob. “I don’t want to bother you, but do you want me to help you find something, Rose? With everything still packed away…”

  It wasn’t like Momma to look so uncertain and Rose’s heart softened.

  “It’s important to look right in a new school, and I have no idea what that would be,” Rose said. She wasn’t even good at looking right at Miss Dalyrumple’s. Fashions seemed to come and go so fast, and Rose was always behind the leaders in her class. “What do they wear in New England, anyway?”

  “My guess is the girls here might dress more simply,” Mother said.

  “I just want to blend in,” Rose said. She frowned at herself in the mirror. Her white corset had blue ribbon to match the ribbon threaded through her pretty eyelet petticoat. But her collarbones stuck out and her face was too angular. “I’m not a Gibson girl, that’s for sure.”

  “Rose, she’s just a product of Charles Dana Gibson’s imagination. I’m not saying he’s not a good artist, but she’s not real. No one looks like the Gibson girl.”

  You do, Rose thought.

  “I know she’s not real,” Rose said, “but she’s on plates and calendars and there’s all that Gibson girl fashion because everyone loves her type. And look at me!”

  “Oh Rosie! You need time to grow into yourself. And sweetie—you are beautiful.”

  “I know, ‘inner beauty.’” Rose sighed. “I hate being new and not knowing a soul and…”

  Mother stroked Rose’s long black hair. “It’s awfully hard, but it can be a great adventure, too. I know you’ll miss the friends you left behind, but you’ll meet new people.”

  I have no friends to miss, Rose thought.

  “Remember how you loved Cape Light when we were here on vacation?” Momma smiled. “We could hardly drag you home.”

  Because of Summer Glory, Rose thought. She smiled back, remembering. When they had visited Aunt Norma and Uncle Ned, Rose had spent every minute at their stables. Glory was the most beautiful palomino, with a shining golden coat, a white mane, and a white tail. Glory had been sold two years ago, to a good home, Uncle Ned had promised. Rose remembered every detail: white patches on her face and on her legs below the knees, a muzzle like velvet, the soft nickering. If Uncle Ned had known then that the Forbes would move to Cape Light, maybe he would have saved Summer Glory for her. She was so sweet and friendly….

  Momma broke into the bittersweet memory. “Come, let’s find something
for you to wear.”

  Most of Rose’s clothes were still packed in the big trunk in the center of her new bedroom. She opened the creaky lid and the lavender fragrance of their Gramercy Park apartment drifted into the air. The house on Lighthouse Lane had smelled musty when they arrived yesterday. They’d opened all the windows for the March wind to air it out.

  Mother looked into the trunk and smiled. “Look, your scrapbooks, right on top.”

  Rose nodded and touched her precious horse scrapbooks, her wish books. The pages contained the treasured items she’d cut out or sent away for: feed catalogs, tack brochures, horse-grooming supplies, instructional sheets, how to plait a mane, newspaper clippings, and pictures of horses, mostly palominos. One scrapbook was filled and bulging, the second one was well under way.

  “You can go to Uncle Ned’s stables after school today.” Momma knew exactly what to say to sweeten the move, Rose thought.

  Rose dug through the clothes at the top of the trunk and found her sky-blue cotton shirtwaist and blue plaid wool skirt.

  “What do you think, Momma?”

  “You can’t go wrong on the side of simplicity.”

  “With my black high-button shoes?”

  Mother nodded. “Your shoes are still in the boxes downstairs. I’ll find them for you. And I’d better get breakfast started. My goodness, I’ll have to find a cook and a cleaning girl. Do you want hotcakes?”

  “No, nothing. I can’t eat a thing.”

  “At least a bite, Rose.” Momma left the room with a swish of skirt and rustling petticoats, trailing lily of the valley perfume. She had to be turning over a new leaf, Rose thought. Hopefully she’d only wear skirts in Cape Light.