The Testing of Rose Alleyn by Vivien Freeman Blog Tour!

 

The Testing of Rose Alleyn

England in the year 1900. A vibrant young woman must take control of her destiny.
Vivien Freeman’s atmospheric novel brings late Victorian England hauntingly to life in the mind of the reader. In this beautifully written romance, we explore the choices facing an independent-minded woman at a time when women struggled for self-determination.

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Extract from The Testing of Rose Alleyn by Vivien Freeman  

It is May 1900.  Since January, sixteen-year-old Rose Alleyn has been living at Mrs Fuller’s hostel for young women, in the market town of Widdock.  Rose has walked home from her work as an assistant at Pritchard’s Bookshop.  The five other tenants are already home.

 As soon as I have closed the front door of Apple Tree House, the kitchen door flies open.

    ‘Yes, it is,’ Winnie calls back into the room.  ‘Come on, Rose, we’ve been waiting for you.’

   What she means, I discover after I’ve flung my hat and coat on the hallstand, is that although the four factory girls have eaten their first course and Lettie is just finishing hers, they are holding back from pudding because, as Meg tells me, we have a treat.

    ‘So, your rhubarb tart lives to fight another day,’ says Priscilla, with a smirk in my direction.  She starts clearing the dirty plates, as I sit down to eat my dinner.

 Jenny, who is Priscilla’s office colleague at the toothbrush factory, comes in at the back door having fetched Mrs. Fuller from her studio in the garden.  ‘What’s all this about?’ she asks.  ‘I can’t wait to be enlightened.’

 It turns out that Winnie and Meg have received an official commendation from their company, Hallambury’s, which produces medicines and surgical equipment.  They used to work in the packaging department but were promoted to the office, where they have been working for three months now.  Not only are their posts confirmed but, because their pharmaceutical knowledge is so good, since they are the daughters of a chemist, they have been told that they may draft proposed replies to enquiries and instructions to be enclosed with orders. 

 ‘Though our manager, Mr. Dixon, will have to approve and sign the letters, of course,’ says Meg.

 ‘He put the idea forward to the Chairman, so he’s just as pleased as us.’

 ‘I bet he is,’ says Priscilla, ‘if you care to think about it.’

 But the rest of us are congratulating the two sisters.

 ‘We thought it was a rather special day,’ says Meg.

 ‘So, we rushed down during lunch break and begged Askey’s to put these aside to pick up on the way home,’ says Winnie bearing in from the scullery, to our gasps of anticipated pleasure, a double-tiered cake-stand upon which are seven mouth-watering Swiss buns, arranged to point outwards as if offering their slim fingers for our delectation. 

 Mrs. Fuller has fetched the finest tea plates from the dresser and, offered first pick, takes her bun and raises it by the underside aloft as if it were a wine glass.  ‘A toast to all you clever girls,’ she says.  ‘Two scientists, two assistants in interesting shops and two office clerks.  I call that impressive.  To all six of you!’

  Lettie can hardly wait till our bedroom door is shut for the night.  ‘Did you see her face – ‘ she breathes,  ‘you know, when Mrs. Fuller - ?’

  ‘I know.’  I say no more, uneasy as I always am, that we might be overheard by someone passing on her way to or from the bathroom. 

  ‘She looked as if she was sucking on a sour lemon.  Trust her to be so jealous of Meg and Winnie’s good fortune, she couldn’t be pleased about Mrs. Fuller’s toast to us all.’

    I simply nod and go to use the bathroom myself.

    It is true that, in response to Mrs. Fuller’s rousing affirmation of our achievements,  Priscilla’s first expression, swiftly blanked, did not echo the appreciation on everyone else’s faces, but Lettie’s deduction doesn’t quite add up, and I don’t want to dwell on any further interpretations.  What remains uppermost in my mind’s eye is how, when Mrs. Fuller included Priscilla and Jenny in the toast, Jenny’s smile froze, as if in shock.

Copyright Vivien Freeman 2021

Vivien Freeman grew up in North London and graduated in Art History from the University of East Anglia before settling in Ware, Hertfordshire. A published poet as well as a novelist, she taught Creative Writing for many years and has an M.A. in Scriptwriting from Salford University. She now lives in rural Wales in the Vale of Glamorgan with her husband, the poet, John Freeman.