The Tale of Rose Moon

By Victoria Sarah Brookes

This is Victoria's first novel. She was born 29 years ago in London but now resides in East Sussex. Her hobbies include travel and exploring European cities. She has a strong belief in the manifestation of the spirits of the dead.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Feb 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781469169415

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Copyright © 2014 by Victoria Sarah Brookes.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2012902927

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4691-6940-8

   Softcover   978-1-4691-6939-2

   Ebook   978-1-4691-6941-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 01/22/2014

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516118

Let’s never dwell mother,

May you fly with your wings now!

I START MY STORY while we are driving to our new home. Luke and I are on the road from Brighton, driving towards Ashdown Forest which is near Crowborough in East Sussex, one of the most beautiful counties in England. Ashdown Forest is in the heart of the High Weald and is a place of outstanding natural beauty. It is distinctive because of its treasured landscape of rolling hills, which are draped with small irregular fields with hidden valleys of grassland and heather. It is renowned for its abundant woods and hedges, scattered farmsteads and sunken lanes which criss-cross the forest. It is teeming with wildlife and it’s a paradise for country lovers. It’s because we love the countryside so much, and given that the Ashdown Forest is such a beautiful place to live, my husband and I took the decision to buy a house here.

My name is Rose Moon and I am twenty-five years old. I have long blonde hair, piercing green eyes and I always wear pink nail varnish; and, dare I say it myself, I also have well above average intelligence. I used to be a Performing Arts teacher at Brighton and Hove College. I really enjoyed my job even though it was very demanding and needed an awfully high level of commitment. I always had to work quite a lot of overtime to make ends meet however, but I never grumbled about it and just got on with my job.

And then Luke, my husband, and I had had the most extreme piece of luck; we won the Euro lottery! A couple of Million Euro’s to be precise. I couldn’t believe it. I always did the Euro Lottery on Friday’s; Friday was my special lucky day so I had more of a chance I kept telling myself. I did the same numbers every week, I called them my magic numbers, they had come into my head from somewhere, I am not sure where, so I kept using them and it had finally worked; we were financially secure for the rest of our lives!

Luke and I had both grown up in Brighton. We first met whilst studying at Brighton and Hove College, the same college where I had worked. Luke had studied Social Care, he wanted a career where he could help people who were under privileged or who needed caring for; but he did love sports first, especially football. Luke and I had always dreamt of living in the countryside, even when we were young. We had lived in the city all of our lives and country life would be like heaven to us. No drunks passing our window on a Friday night for example, no shouting and screaming from out in the street, no litter being dropped near our bedroom window, no mess in our doorway each time we went out.

Now that we could afford to move the best thing of all was there would be no more blasting rock music from the flat above! They were neighbours from hell! What a great swap! It wasn’t all bad in the city though. I will miss shopping on Saturday’s in Brighton Mall, it has some fantastic shops; and having a laugh with my best friend June, but I can always visit, and June can visit me too. Luke and I had seen this lovely house being advertised in one of those upmarket property magazines. It was one of those really posh mags, one of the ones which you never buy yourself but find them in the dentists or the doctor’s waiting room. When we saw the house we knew immediately that we had to have it so we made sure we got it; because we were so frightened that we could be gazumped we offered over the asking price, thereby ensuring we secured ownership of it.

Hopefully we should reach our new home in time for dinner. I often thought to myself how lucky we are that we live in the South East of England. It is so beautiful. How wonderful, nothing but open land all around us. Fields, trees and a constant supply of clean, fresh air! I can’t believe we have this fantastic opportunity to move to the wonderful, wonderful countryside. I am so excited for us both. What a great new start it will be. I can’t believe it, we are here at last. We are here in our new home! Luke and I are finally at our new house! I am so excited. It took us nearly 3 hours to drive from Brighton, a journey which should have taken only an hour. It was because our rusty old car had picked up a puncture and Luke took ages to change the wheel; poor love, he isn’t very good at things like that! We will definitely be buying a new car once we have settled in!

Fortunately, Luke and the removal company people had already dropped off all of our furniture and belongings a few days previously so I didn’t have the immediate daunting prospect of furniture moving and arranging the rooms as soon as we arrived. As Luke unlocked the old wooden front door he grabbed me and picked me up to carry me over the threshold! Our house is massive. It’s everything we’ve dreamed of. As you walk through the front door there is a kitchen on the right side of the passage. It has a small round table with four chairs and there are cupboards all around the room and a huge built-in cooker and a separate pantry too! On the left there is a very expansive lounge. It has a beautiful green carpet and nice new furniture which Luke and I had bought before we left Brighton.

My favourite room is the dining room which is at the back of the house. It’s just one massive room with a large dark brown solid wood table in the centre. The table is round, with eight matching chairs around it. I know we need to buy more furniture but we will be fine with what we have for now. However the decoration inside the house is not our cup of tea, it’s very dated and looks old and tired. All of the downstairs rooms are painted light green. Luke and I are going to be doing a lot of work to get our house exactly how we want it.

When one walks up the stairs the master bedroom is to the right and it has an old fashioned en-suite; I have always wanted an en-suite, but this one is dated and we plan to up-date it as soon as we can engage builders to do it. Next to that we have the family bathroom, again it is extremely dated. The other four rooms are guest bedrooms. Our en-suite has a shower, a toilet, a sink and a small round window that looks just lovely. It’s such a beautiful house. The outside of the house is stunning, with gardens which wrap around the whole property. There is little to no fencing between us and the forest; it’s as if the whole of Ashdown Forest is our back garden. Luke may, however, put up some fencing at some point so we can have our privacy from the dog walkers and hikers. We had another look around the whole house, trying to get a sense of the size of the place. I left Luke to explore further while I made us both some coffee and sandwiches. In all of the excitement I had forgotten that we hadn’t even had dinner, luckily we had brought a few bits with us.

‘It’s good to be here,’ Luke said, as he was walking down the stairs. ‘I am so happy, Luke,’ I said, while handing him his coffee. We sat there munching our sandwiches and sipping on our hot coffee and making plans for the future. Luke was being very professional because he was taking notes of all the things which we discussed. He put his arm around me and we both realised just how happy we were to be in our new home. We went to bed really early that night; we were so tired after our busy day of looking around the house and planning the decoration and alterations. We both needed refreshing for a demanding day ahead of us tomorrow.

It was about 9 am when I woke up. It must have been in a really deep sleep because I felt so full of life and energy. Luke was still asleep. I couldn’t wake him up, so I just left him there. I went downstairs to make some coffee in my new kitchen which also, incidentally, needed much refurbishment. I’d usually have three cups of coffee before 12 p.m. When I was a teacher, I had to get up really early and used to have about five cups throughout the school day. I know it was crazy to drink so much coffee. I walked into the dining room, just so I could admire the size of it again. ‘Wow, amazing! I love it so much,’ I thought to myself. I looked out of the window and I thought I saw something move, a bird or perhaps a rabbit or even a deer for that matter. I went up to the window, and whatever I thought I had seen was now gone. Maybe it was dog, out for a Saturday morning walk with its master. Then seconds later Luke came into the room and made me jump. ‘I am sorry, my love,’ he said. ‘That’s OK, Honey. I thought I saw something outside.’ ‘Did you pack my T-shirt, you know the one with ‘You’re The Best’ written on it?’ ‘Yeah, I did. It’s in the black suitcase, upstairs next to the bed.’ ‘Oh, thanks Love. I will go and get it, and then we can go shopping, yeah?’ ‘Yeah, sure Luke. No worries,’ I said.

After Luke had got himself dressed we headed into Crowborough. Crowborough had been the home of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle for about 20 years of his life. He wrote many of his books whilst living there and there is a monument to him in the town. Many of the roads and shops are named after characters in Conan Doyle’s books; especially Sherlock Holmes characters. Needless to say that when we had breakfast in a little cafe in the town it was called The Sherlock! I love eating out. It’s one of my favourite things I like to do. Luke and I had a big, full English breakfast with extra toast. We looked around a few of the shops and then we went to the supermarket to stock up with food and drink as our cupboards were virtually bare. We then headed back over the forest to the house. We had bought so much stuff, enough to last us for a long while. It felt like it was Christmas, so much happiness and joy in the air. I sent Luke outside to explore the forest around our house while I sorted out the shopping. It took me ages to unpack and decide where to put everything. After making a coffee I went into the lounge and started to watch a film, a very lazy thing to do considering we had only just moved in! It was a good old horror film; I love watching horrors. I was just getting comfortable on the sofa when I saw a man dash by in front of my window. That’s it I thought, Luke is back already just as I was about to relax. When he didn’t come in I went outside to investigate.

I didn’t see anybody at first and started to get nervous but when I went to the front of the house I saw an old man lurking around. ‘Hey,’ I shouted, ‘what do you want, who are you?’ He turned around and stared at me with dark, deep set eyes. ‘What’s going on? Who is this?’ I heard Luke call out as he came up behind me; he had just got back from his walk. ‘I don’t know Luke. Hey, why have you been snooping around in our garden?’ I asked.

‘Please, please let me explain…’ said the strange old man. He looked like he hadn’t had a wash in years, he smelt like it too! ‘Go on then.’ Luke hissed. ‘I am your butler,’ he continued, ‘I am here to work for you. I was just having a look around the house to see if you have arrived yet.’ ‘Our car is there. You would have seen it,’ Luke said. ‘What do you mean you’re our butler, what for? And who would have sent you?’ I asked, totally puzzled. Luke was just looking at him, staring at him like he had never seen anyone like him before. He did look really old and scary. He had a nervous twitch with his head too, looked like he had been in a war or something like that.

‘Sir, your estate agent should have told you about me. I come with the house. I work for free. I do your gardens sir, cook for you, and just look after you in exchange for board and lodging.’ ‘This is crazy,’ I said, ‘this doesn’t make any sense at all.’ Then the man said, ‘Sir, madam, you can check it out with Mr. Squares your estate agent. My name is Berg, and I have served every person that has lived in this house for decades.’ ‘Umm… Sir, I think I like that,’ said Luke, scratching his head whilst telling Berg our names were Luke and Rose Moon. ‘Let me phone our estate agent and we can see what he says, said Luke. ‘Why don’t you come in to the kitchen, I will make you coffee,’ I strangely offered. We all went in the house. I really didn’t understand what was going on. Maybe this sort of thing happens in the countryside? I made everyone a coffee. Then we all sat around the kitchen table. Luke phoned the estate agent, and the agent apologized for forgetting to tell us about Berg. Berg was right, we had our own butler!

We sat in our kitchen chatting for about two hours. Berg was telling us the history of the house. He told us that the house was built in about 1560; he told us that the first family to ever live here was called the Elliots. He told us that the house holds great treasures and great family moments, passed down from family to family. He said he was born in 1946. His father had previously looked after the house and so did his grandfather and so on and so forth. After chatting to Berg for some time and having a good old natter, he seemed really nice a old boy. He lives in the shack around the side of the house, which I thought it was just a storage shed. He has a kettle, a fridge and a small oven, which all run on the electricity supplied by our main house and, of course, he has a bed. He said that’s all he needs. He also does his washing by hand. Berg said that he has lived here for many years. I asked him about his family, he said he only has one cousin left alive and who lives in London. I thought it was quite sad, but he seemed perfectly fine talking about it. He also said that when the house was occupied he loved looking after the family and the grounds too because he wanted to make the owners happy.

He offered to make us dinner. I was a bit worried because he was a bit smelly and generally unkempt and someone else using my kitchen, in my new house felt a bit strange; but I let him go ahead. I’m sure I’d get used to having Berg around although he did have an awful tic which often made him throw his head from side to side. I must say I was really very pleased to see that he had had a good wash and scrub before he started cooking. We had baked potatoes with cheese and freshly prepared salad. I must acknowledge that it was perfect. Berg cleared up the dinner plates and then quickly announced that he had other things to do, so he went off in a bit of a hurry. Maybe he felt that we needed some space, time to get used to the idea of having a butler. Luke and I went into the lounge and decided to watch the film I had started to watch earlier, he said it was necessary to watch it from the beginning again. Luke was really quiet when Berg was talking about the history of the house. I asked him if he was alright. He said he was fine and shrugged. I guess that meant he wasn’t and will bottle it all up, whatever it was, like he usually does.

The next day I got up at about 9.30 am, thinking to myself that lay-ins are just great! I went downstairs and made a cup of tea; I didn’t fancy coffee for some reason this morning, perhaps I had had just too much coffee recently. I looked outside of my kitchen window to admire the beautiful scenery that the forest offers and saw Berg sitting on a huge, old log. I made him a cup of tea too and went outside to join him; I even took a few biscuits out to him. ‘I was just thinking, what you would like me to do with the garden Mrs Moon? Oh, and thank you for the tea and biscuits.’ he said. I sat next to him. His hands looked so cold. His tic was playing him up quite badly. He was just looking up into space most of the time. Berg explained that the grass was still damp from the rain last night. It must have rained while we were asleep because I never heard it raining. ‘That tea should warm you up, Berg. Do you want to come inside?’ I asked. He looked at me and then he looked down to the ground. He looked sad. I was really warming to the old boy; I don’t know why, but I was. ‘Do you want to come in for some breakfast?’ I asked him. He looked at me with his saddening eyes and said, ‘That’s sweet of you Mrs Moon but I can’t. I have to do some gardening, and then I am going to cut some wood. I don’t need to do any watering because of the rain; lots of water helps things to grow and grow.’ ‘Only if you’re sure Berg, maybe next time,’ I said. ‘Very kind of you, Mrs Moon,’ he said. He then had a sip of tea and started nibbling on a biscuit.

I went inside and made some toast for myself. Berg doesn’t cook for us at every mealtime which is quite nice because it gives us some space and if he did do breakfast I would have to get up on a certain time each day. A short time later, while I was in the lounge watching some daytime telly, Luke came downstairs and gave me a kiss on the cheek; I love it when he does that. He made two cups of coffee and sat down next to me. ‘I love our life here, Rose. Everything is just so perfect,’ he said while putting his feet up on the coffee table. ‘You can now work on your dream, Honey,’ I said. Luke used to be a teacher; he always maintained that his Social Care degree helped him to handle the tribulations of dealing with young people in the classroom. He had a friend who had got into trouble with one of his students. She was a sixteen year old and his friend, who was a history teacher, was twenty eight. The silly man became personally involved with the girl and was rightly prosecuted. I think the incident was a massive waning shot to lots of male teachers. Nevertheless Luke thought that teaching was the most boring job in the world and he told me that his real dream was to be an author of football books. ‘Darling, you have made me so happy. It’s amazing, it’s like I’m touching the sky,’ he said. Thank God, he doesn’t want to write poems I thought!

Two days later, we heard from our friends Peter and June. They will be arriving at the end of the week for a short visit. June is a school teacher too. She teaches English at a secondary school. We met on a teacher training course at college. Peter is a shop manager. He hates his job most days, so he is looking for another place to work. Peter says that when staff phone in sick the day manager telephones him on his day off and, as a result, he has to go in to work and cover for them; consequently he can never plan to do anything. I can’t wait for them to come and see our new home. They know we have won the lottery, but they don’t know exactly how much. Luke and I haven’t even told our parents how much we won. We decided not to tell anybody just in case it caused some embarrassment in some way; either to our family and friends or to ourselves. However the truth is, I suppose, is that if somebody wanted to find out they could look it up on the internet! My parents are in Spain, living life to the full down in the south of the country. Luke’s parents live in Brighton. His mum is called Frankie and his father is Max, they have their own taxi company so are often very busy. They met whilst at school years ago when they were teenagers. They quickly got married, and have been together ever since, I hope Luke and I end up like them.

A couple of days passed, we spent most of our time trying to make our home perfect and comfortable, as well as exploring the local area. I can’t believe June and Peter are coming over today. I am so excited about it because June is my very best friend. Luke made me breakfast in bed today, he’s a proper romantic sometimes. It’s about 10 a.m, another late start to the day. Luke keeps on telling me about football stories, he loves chatting to me about them, telling me about how good he was as a player. He reckons he was the best footballer at our college. He always tells the story about when he was a striker, he tells it well. I think it’s because he tells me so many times so I just nod and agree with what he says. He loved to play football at every chance he got. I would catch him sometimes in his back garden playing one on one football with his dog at his house in Brighton; this was when he still lived with his parents. Oh wow! I just looked at the time. It’s now eleven o’clock in the morning. They will be here in two hours, we still need to get dressed and clean up. I was so made excited about them coming. I kept going around the house making sure that everything was perfect and in its place. This is the weird part because I never used to be so fussy but know I am a bit over the top about keeping the place straight and tidy. However one of the funny things is that no matter how many times I address issues such as straightening pictures or putting curtains straight they seem to slip back to how they were; I blame Luke for following me around the house and trying to straighten things himself.

June phoned me about 1 p.m. to say they were just leaving. I still couldn’t believe it, my friends would soon be here, I can’t wait. After what seemed an eternity a car finally pulled up to the house. It was now 8 pm and dark outside. I opened the door to find a soaking wet June standing there all on her own. She was drenched; it had been raining so hard all afternoon. I immediately rushed her in and made her a hot drink. Luke hung her wet coat up and put her shoes next to the heater to dry. ‘Where is Peter?’ I asked while handing her a cup of tea. ‘Peter had to go into work. Can you believe it; they called him up again, right at the last minute. I hate his job,’ she said.

June’s speaking voice reflected the education that she had when she was younger, all prim and proper. He manners were impeccable too; she was a real first class lady, an excellent example for the youth of today to follow. She has gorgeous straight red hair and green eyes. She only wore label clothes and somehow she always had the money to afford them. If she had an issue with something that you had said or done, then she would certainly let you know about it but in the most perfect way. We made June some dinner; we already had our meal earlier. She must have been starving I thought to myself! She was rushing it down her like the world was about to end. ‘I can’t believe I arrived so late,’ she said. ‘I drove and drove around these woods and quiet country lanes completely and utterly lost. My satnav died on me and so did my mobile, which was fully charged when I left home.’ ‘I was getting worried about you,’ I said. ‘The house looks fantastic, Rose. You have got a wonderful kitchen although I suppose you will be modernising it a bit won’t you?’ said June. ‘Um thanks and yes we will.’ I said with Luke looking at me in that strange way of his. ‘We have a butler too,’ I blurted out using my Oxford toff accent. ‘I thought you weren’t going to be upper-class?’ said June, tucking into what was left of her fish pie! ‘The Butler came with the house, his name is Berg,’ Luke answered instead of me. ‘He came with the house? How does that work?’ June questioned the answer. ‘Long story,’ I said. ‘Would you like some wine, June?’ I said, trying to change the subject. ‘Thank you, darling, that would be lovely. Are we allowed to smoke in the kitchen?’ ‘Yes, we are,’ I answered. Luke poured the wine into our glasses; I think he felt a little uncomfortable. After June had finished her dinner, we went into the lounge and started to chat about everything, the house, our friends, June’s job, Peter; and everything under the sun; we had some very nice cake that Luke had brought earlier which helped soak up the wine, thankfully! ‘I am so excited to be here. Peter does apologise for not being able to make it.’ ‘Don’t’ worry about it,’ said Luke. ‘It must be horrible to always be on call.’ ‘Tell me about it,’ said June sounding very exasperated.

After a quiet evening chatting and swopping gossip, and, of course drinking too much wine I helped June with her bags showed her to her bedroom. I told her she could help herself to anything in the kitchen if she became hungry in the night or to just knock on our door if she needed us. She gave me a hug and I left her to get ready for bed and freshen up. I went back downstairs to join Luke. ‘Well, what do you think of that then?’ said Luke. ‘About what, Luke?’ I said. ‘About Peter not coming with her of course. I bet they had a fight or something and she doesn’t want us to know. That’s why she said that Peter had to work. He sent me a text message earlier.’ ‘Saying what, Luke?’ I went and sat myself next to him on the sofa. ‘Just saying sorry about having to go to work. It’s a bit fishy, isn’t it; do you think they are having matrimonial problems?’ ‘It’s his job, Luke.