Miss Rose Bud Takes A Holiday

By Elizabeth Pulford

One spring morning in 1951 Miss Rose Bud, a thirty-year-old spinster, learns she has inherited a rather large sum of money, from a father she has never meet or known. As she has never had a holiday she decides to take one.
On the train to the sunny seaside town of Whiteshore Rose meets Peter Winter, a pleasant young man, also travelling to Whiteshore. At the plush Majestic Hotel where Rose is staying, there is Mr Bannister. Both gentlemen are handsome in their own way. Finally, there is the bookshop owner, Daniel Bush, who is not at all handsome.
Her feelings are all over the place, and even more so when she becomes embroiled in a plot to trap a thief.
Is Rose’s life about to change? If so, will it be for the better or the worse?
A warm and entertaining novella about stepping out and facing unknown perils.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elizabeth Pulford
• Release date: Apr 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463137550

Elizabeth Pulford

Before I became a writer I was a traveller, a typist, a cleaner and an ice-cream girl in a cinema.Now I live in New Zealand in a small southern seaside town with one extra nice husband who is a king of-all-trades.We have two children and two grandchildren.Every morning I go to my little writing room to make up stories. From this room I look out into a small garden, where I can hear the birds squabbling.Writing has long been a passion and sometimes even a curse!I have had over sixty children's books published from the very young to YA with regular publishers. Plus my adult short stories have been lucky enough to win many short story competitions.I love being creative, be it baking bread or chasing after new characters.Photograph by: Liz Cadogan - http://www.facebook.com/LizCadoganphotos

Book preview

Miss Rose Bud Takes a Holiday

Elizabeth Pulford

Copyright © 2019 Elizabeth Pulford

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. Please respect the hard work of the author.

This is a work of fiction. No resemblance to any persons or situations is intended.

Cover © Shutterstock

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter One

It was one of those peach-like mornings. Where the sun had yet to ripen and sweeten the coming hours.

Rose stood at her bedroom window and contemplated her life. She had turned thirty, two days ago. Her celebration had been a modest affair; held in the tiny stationery room to the side of the office where she worked.

Mr Branson, the boss, did not approve of wasting time, nor of living the high life. Rose wanted to comment that a few cheese scones and a cream sponge did not constitute the high life and he should be invited. But, Mrs Moody, a small ball of a woman with grey fused hair like wire, who did the accounts and wages for the brick-laying firm, said otherwise. Rose, not wanting to make a fuss, went along with Mrs Moody’s views.

There were five at the party, if you could call it that. Jennifer and Sally, the two typists, Betty the telephonist, Mrs Moody and Rose, all squashed in the stationery room along with the manilla folders, realms of typing paper, carbon paper, and the gestetner machine. The celebration took ten minutes. After Rose had accepted the birthday card, signed by all except Mr Branson, which had a bunch of roses on the front along with an encouraging message to have a Very Happy Birthday, they had gobbled their way through the scones and cake in case Mr Branson decided he urgently needed a new pen or pad.

Smiley & Smiley the firm for which Rose had worked since she leaving school, without gaining the all-important School Certificate, stood at the end of a narrow lane, three blocks from the main street, where a nasty wind blew whatever the season. She had been hired, because her widowed mother had been a dear, dear friend of Mr Branson for a long time. Because of this he said he would be happy to accommodate Rose, but warned she would be shown no favours. To which her mother had given a large sigh of relief and told Rose to not let her down and to appreciate Mr Branson’s kindness.

Rose’s first job on her first morning, fourteen years ago at the grand age of seventeen in 1937, had been to lick the stamps and stick them on the letters.

Her second job had been to enter the outgoing correspondence into a large black accounting book. This she did three times a day. Then before she left at five o’clock she had to add up the figures in the accounting book to make sure they tallied with the cost of the stamps and the number of envelopes on a separate list. If all was well and good then she would button up her blue woollen coat, put on her hat and gloves, place the bundle of mail in her handbag ready to post on her way home.

The one thing Rose had always been good at secondary school had been figures. Such a talent had stood her in good stead at Smiley & Smiley. But Mrs Moody, who had been with the firm, for goodness knows how long, saw Rose as a threat and began to alter the figures in the book, making Rose’s neat column of figures a scrambled mess. It was a well-known fact Mr Branson would randomly check the postal book, for neatness and accuracy. It didn’t take a detective to figure out who was responsible. But Rose being Rose said nothing. Instead she simply smiled at Mrs Moody every time she opened the black book. Her continual looks told Mrs Moody she knew exactly what she had been doing. In the end Mrs Moody’s fear of Rose reporting her behaviour to Mr Branson, was greater than Rose taking over her job, and so she left the postal book alone.

After a year of licking and sticking Rose decided to go to night school to train as a secretary. Her mother felt this was an excellent idea. Her enthusiasm was such she bought Rose a second-hand typewriter on which to practise. The Olivetti still remained where Rose had first set it up. On a sturdy wooden table with a single drawer, in the corner of her bedroom. The table had been given gladly by Mr Green, another dear, dear friend of her mother’s. The shorthand had been too much for Rose, so she had dropped it and concentrated solely on the typing.

When the brick-laying business began to expand and Mr Branson decided to hire a secretary for the newly appointed Mr Rainer, Rose put up her hand for the position and was accepted. Mr Rainer was responsible for the job contracts. They had swelled so much in six months that Mr Branson reluctantly felt he was unable to manage alone any longer.

The secretarial appointment was an extremely proud moment in the career of Rose. To celebrate her new status her mother made a rice pudding, to which she daringly added a handful of raisins.

Mr Rainer was dashing looking. His dark hair was kept smooth and straight, with Brylcreem. He wore a navy-blue suit, which he teamed up with almost too bright ties, not flashy, but certainly not subdued. He was refreshing in every sense of the word and Rose fell in love with him just before she turned eighteen. Mr Rainer wore Old Spice aftershave lotion, (a new cologne manufactured in America), which sent Rose’s head in a spin every time she went into his office to collect the letters he wanted typing.

At home Rose spent hours on the Olivetti until she could bang out words so fast her fingers didn’t have to think twice about which keys to hit. At the end of the night classes she had gained a certificate to say her typing skill was Excellent and she could type sixty words a minute.

Her mother was exceptionally pleased with her result. Usually on a Wednesday dinner was potatoes, carrots, peas and a chop. That Wednesday there was also a pudding. Thick yellow custard into which a banana had been thinly sliced.

The whistle of the postman disturbed Rose’s musings about her life. She watched as he popped letters in the box.

It was time she was leaving. Never once had she been late for work. Not even after the city had been blanketed by an extraordinary snowfall. The others employees had straggled in at all sorts of hours. Rose liked to be punctual and intended to keep up her high standard. She hurried out of her bedroom to collect the mail.

On opening the front door and stepping outside she paused for a moment to take in the air. The spring morning held a slight chill, but otherwise it was going to be a glorious day. Rose felt this in her bones and she was normally correct. She lifted up the back flap of the box. Inside lay three letters.

She recognised the writing on the first envelope. It was from her friend Trudy, whom she had met through church, but had since married a fresh young farmer called Simon and moved off shore to live in the untamed country of Tasmania in Australia. Rose liked reading her letters and getting her news. Although lately they were mostly about the three children and not so much about her life on the farm, which Rose admitted she enjoyed more.

The second was an account for electricity. Rose slipped it into her handbag. She would pay the amount at lunchtime. The office wasn’t far from Smiley & Smiley.

The remaining letter looked formal in its crisp white envelope. Once back inside the house Rose went to the cutlery drawer, picked out a sharp knife and sliced it along the folded edge. The name Wilkinson & Sons, Solicitors was embossed along the top of the letter. Below, also embossed was their address and further below, not embossed, was the date the correspondence had been written, 5th March 1951.

Rose knew of the firm. When she went to have her hair cut she would walk by the grand old building on the corner of David and Thomas Street and had often wondered what it would be like to work in such a place.

As she read the contents of the letter her eyes widened and she had to sit down before she fell to the ground in shock, or surprise, or something.

It had to be a mistake.

But as she reread the words for a second time she realised she hadn’t made a mistake.

Early on in Rose’s life she’d had a stepfather for three years. This was between the ages of nine to twelve. He had survived the war and then found out too late he was allergic to bees, dying from a fatal sting. Rose had been sad to lose him as he played card games with her and he always let her win. Those were the years when her mother could afford to put some coins in the Christmas pudding.

Of course, she’d also had her real father. A father she had never known. Never met. About whom her mother had never spoken, not one word.

It was this person, this father who had always been a mythical person in Rose’s mind, who had, according to the solicitor’s letter, left her an inheritance of thirty-one thousand pounds.

Chapter Two

Rose had always been teased about her name.

When she had been a baby the other mothers thought Rose Bud was a delightful name, so Rose had been told by her mother. As she got older she did wonder if her mother ever told lies. Not horrible, damaging lies, but little white lies. Her mother’s full maiden name, which she had daringly kept through two marriages, had been Harriet Florence Bud which Rose thought had a nice sound to it. There had been many other Buds, in fact quite a long branch, her mother would often say with a laugh.

The only person who had never made fun of her name had been Jimmy O’Hara who lived in the same street as Rose. Jimmy was one of ten children who ran riot around the neighbourhood. Rose’s mother said it was wrong to have so many children, even though they dressed nicely and always went to Mass on Sunday.

Jimmy hung around Rose. He waited to walk to school with her and then back home afterwards, even though Jimmy was a year older. When Rose was eleven Jimmy asked if she would marry him when they were grown up. Rose told him no but did tack on a thank you for asking. Jimmy said he wasn’t ever going to give up, but then he had been run over by a bus when he had been riding his bike, and so couldn’t ask again. Rose was never sure, if Jimmy had kept on, if she would have changed her mind and said yes. She had liked Jimmy, but it wasn’t ever going to be enough to turn into love, a condition Rose had pledged on her tenth birthday when she had been gazing up at the full moon. Love was a necessary requirement when considering marriage.

Sitting at her desk Rose was waiting for a convenient moment to speak to Mr Branson. The letter from the solicitors had arranged a meeting at two o’clock this coming Friday which they ‘sincerely hoped would be convenient’. Rose decided to make it convenient.

Over her years of working for Smiley & Smiley she had rarely, if