Read Online Rose by Holly Webb - Free Book Online

house. Rose had already been shocked by the amount of food that was eaten at the Fountain house—not just the amazing dishes that Mrs. Jones concocted for Mr. Fountain’s dinners, but the meals she was served in the kitchen, mostly cooked by Sarah, the kitchen maid. Meat every day! Sometimes twice! And cups of tea and odd bits of cake. Not to mention the huge slabs of bread and dripping that Bill seemed to be tucking into whenever she saw him. Not that they made him any less skinny. Rose supposed that he was making up for all his years of never quite enough at the orphanage.
    But this shop was packed with food. Great, towering piles of it. Sacks overflowing, tins tottering, enormous hams swinging from beams up above. A flock of small boys swarmed up and down spindly ladders, fetching the produce from the ranks of shelves. It was like a temple dedicated to eating. Rose couldn’t help feeling that it was all rather improper. Still, at least the tin of silver polish and the packet of crystallized violets hid the crab a little bit.
    Bill pulled his penny out of his trouser pocket, and led Rose over to a small counter in front of a sparkling array of glass jars filled with brightly colored sweets. A pretty girl in a frilled white apron turned to serve them. At least, she was pretty until she smiled, and then Rose couldn’t tear her eyes away from the girl’s teeth—her mouth was filled with blackened stumps.
    Bill didn’t seem to notice. “Pennyworth of sherbet, please!” he said eagerly.
    â€œMrs. Jones said you weren’t to have that!” Rose reminded him, banging the basket into his leg. He glared at her, and added, “The green kind! All right, Little Miss Know-it-all?”
    â€œYou’ll still be sick, I bet,” Rose muttered, but he ignored her.
    â€œWould you like anything, miss?” the shop girl asked. Rose tried not to stare at her teeth and looked at the rows of jars instead. She had no idea. “Butterscotch?” the girl suggested. “Licorice pipes? A sherbet fountain? Toffee? Aniseed balls?”
    â€œNot those, Rose, you wouldn’t like them. They’re disgusting,” Bill told her firmly.
    Rose was almost wishing she didn’t have a penny. The girl was starting to look irritable, and Bill wouldn’t stop laughing at her. “What are those?” she asked desperately, pointing to one of the jars.
    â€œThese?” The shop girl lifted down a jar, and Rose gasped with delight. She’d pointed at random, but they were so pretty. Little pillow-shaped sweets in glorious stripes—pink and white, green and gold, purple and red. They looked like something from a fairy tale; Rose could see a princess’s bed piled with them.
    â€œWhat are they called?” she asked, thinking that they’d probably be something dismal like cough drops.
    â€œChocolate satins. Want them?”
    â€œOh, yes!” Rose nodded eagerly, watching as the jewel-like sweets poured into a paper bag. The name was perfect too. It was like being handed treasure. She gave her penny over the counter with a tiny pang of doubt, remembering the beggar child. It didn’t feel fair—but these were her first ever sweets. Didn’t she deserve them?
    They strolled along the street, Bill dipping his finger in the sherbet bag blissfully, until his black livery was covered in a faint dusting of green, and Rose cautiously sucking a chocolate satin—the green and gold kind, which reminded her of the frog prince in the one book of fairy tales in the schoolroom at St. Bridget’s.
    â€œOh, they’re different in the middle!” she exclaimed after a while.
    â€œThat’s the chocolate , Rose!” Bill sighed. “Chocolate satins? Honestly.”
    But Rose wasn’t listening. She was some way behind him, staring silently into another plate-glass window. Bill found himself telling empty air how if she was that dumb she was asking