When Rosamund was six years old, her sense of mischief already highly developed and a clear sense of snarky humour at already such a tender age she persuaded Robert, her baby brother by three years, that if he went into the attics at midnight and called out certain words and spun on the spot then the spirits of the dead would appear to him and he could enjoy a cosy chat with a long gone grandmother and any various favourite historical figures.
"Really?" Robert asked, his blue eyes wide. "Can I really talk to dead granny?"
"Of course, idiot." Rosamund honestly hated little Robert sometimes. He was an irritating little whiner who mother was far too fond of. Probably because he was The Boy and would inherit all. (Even though she was only incredibly young, Rosamund was a sharp child who frequently picked up much more upon what was applied than what was said.)
But of course, like all siblings, she adored him too, and turned upon anyone to Robert when he was being yelled by an irate governess and it wasn't his fault. Rosamund would give him rib crunching hugs afterwards to make it up, and then drag him off to play dress up, cocooning him in her old dresses and laughing mercilessly at his shame.
"Do you want to talk to Granny?" she demanded, drawing his wrists into her bony little hands and clutching him tight so he couldn't squirm away. "Because you can if you want to."
"Yes." He looked up at his sister, still holding him in her iron grip.
"Promise? Promise you want to!" Rosamund still didn't let go.
"Yes. Promise. Leggo of me, Rosy! You're hurtin' me!" His three year old voice was thin and piping. Over in the far corner of the room the governess looked up from her needlework, ears alerted by his little-boy cries.
"Everything alright, Master Robert? Rosamund?" The governess fixed her own mahogany eyes on the girl's sparkly blue ones. The girl was far too canny for her liking. Why couldn't she sit nicely with a book like the last child she had cared for?
"Hm?" the governess prompted gently. "What are you plotting?"
"Rosy's gonna take me-" Robert's announcement was cut off by a sharp pinch to his arm. Rosamund shot the death glare at him. "Shut up!" she hissed.
"We're not doing anything," Rosamund smiled innocently at the governess. "Whatever gave you the idea that we were?"
The woman seethed. Infuriating child! And only six as well. Far too like the Countess for her own bloody good.
"Whatever it may or may not be, it's time for you to go see your mama," she said. "What are you doing all covered in paint, Robert? I'll just whip you off for a quick bath." She whisked the boy away, before re-appearing for only a moment to quickly inform Rosamund that she was a big enough girl now to amuse herself for a while.
The governess went out again; sliding shut the partitioning door with a firm click. Rosamund pressed her ear against it listening to the sound of running water and her brother's squeals as she laughed. If he blabbed about talking to the ghosts in the attic, Rosamund would have hell to pay.
Maybe he was too little for such secrets? But it was all a fabrication of course…Rosamund had never spoken to a ghost in her life, let alone her granny or Henry VIII, but getting Robert all wound up and scared was too much of a temptation to resist. Listening again to the sounds emitting from the other side of the door (it appeared Robert was putting up a good fight) she decided that they might be bathing a while, no matter how quick the governess wanted it to be.
She tugged open the nursery door, peered out into the dark passage way to check that there was no footmen, butler's, or, even worse, a housemaid coming by, and shot out the door like a shadow and around the corner, up the stairs, deep into the darkest recesses of the house where the attics lay.
Rosamund knew the way quite well. The attics were a tremendous source of fascination to her, and her favourite place to hide when she was feeling upset about something or another. They were stuffed with boxes and bags and trunks, and it all contained rather an aura of mystery, as only the servants ever really went up there. Rosamund had visited at night too, so she knew how imposing it could look.
But she didn't have long until Robert and the governess returned from the bath.
She dashed around the room, arranging it at will so that it would look as scary as she needed. Robert had often come to her at night when his dreams got too much for him, and she knew what a horror he had of hulking shapes in the dark and things lurking round corners. She'd always cuddled him close and sworn that she'd kill whatever came for him before they could reach him. Rosamund didn't care if they got her. Rosamund was fearless.
It took longer than she would have liked, lugging the boxes around, but they were heavy and she wasn't particularly big or strong. But putting them in place and seeing the finished product arranged into a sort of semi-circle that would presumably tower above Robert, it was all worth it. Rosamund rubbed her dusty hands together as she sniggered with glee at the prospect of luring Robert up here that night.
But she had been a while now, and so decided not to risk the governess's wrath if she wasn't back on time and charged full tilt back down the stairs and into the nursery, flinging herself into a chair and panting from the exertion, flicking her red sweaty ringlets out of her eyes.
The governess appeared out with Robert eventually, who was dressed in his starched and ironed sailor suit. The governess was face bore the distinct look of someone slowly and painfully reaching the end of her tether.
"Oh Rosamund, what have you been doing?!" The governess sighed as she took in the girl's dusty, smirking countenance. "When I said you could amuse yourself I didn't mean you could get yourself so filthy!"
The governess looked down at her watch. "Well, I don't have time to bath you, so you better quickly come along and you can wear your pretty new yellow dress," she said. "And we'll brush your hair. It will freshen you up somewhat, yes?"
Setting Robert down on a little plush velvet stool the governess peeled away Rosamund's lilac gown and tugged the new silky yellow one down over her head. The girl wriggled as the rustling cotton dragged at her ears and scowled at the governess when her head appeared again for mussing up her hair even more.
But admittedly, the dress was a pretty one. The cotton was soft and the yellow pale, and had little sprigs of white frothy flowers embroidered around the edges. She smoothed it down below her knees and beamed. She twirled in front of the mirror anticipating a vision of gorgeousness - maybe she'd look as beautiful as one of mama's aristocratic friends! Rosamund quivered with anticipation, but all of her hopes of beauty were quashed when she finally caught a glimpse. She looked like skinny, red headed custard. With white bits on it.
Rosamund glowered.
Then Robert tripped over the stool he had been sat on and tore the bottom of the seat of his suit. It was with a weary air that the governess put him into another one. And finally, finally, when they were both deemed presentable and ready, the governess arranged smiles on their sulking faces and propelled them downstairs to spend their daily hour with the Countess of Grantham.
The visit was not a success. Robert was so obviously bursting to tell his mother about the wonderful secret of the dead in the attic, (really, it was a wonder he hadn't told the governess already!), and Rosamund spent the whole time shooting him evil glances and pinching the flesh of his porky leg whenever he so much as opened his mouth lest he should say something untoward.
Rosamund had long fingernails with hard fingers and certainly didn't lack for vindictiveness and by the end of an hour spent sitting around a table with Violet and nibbling cake, Robert's leg was covered with purpling bruises and his face was dripping with tears. They were swept off to bed soon after, Robert having been consoled with an unexpected hug from his mother and his tears and snotty nose wiped away by her own lacy handkerchief. Rosamund had scowled in the corner throughout the whole procedure. Robert certainly would get the ghost treatment that night.
It might not have been his fault that Violet seemed to prefer Robert to Ros, but she still resented it, deep down in her soul. Rosamund adored Robert and he worshipped her like a goddess or, more appropriately for his age, a fairy queen, but now she felt she hated him. He was an infuriating brat and hopefully being locked in the attic with a bunch of "ghosts" would take him down a peg or too.
Violet finished fussing her son with a kiss on the top of the head. "Goodnight, Robert," she soothed. "I won't pretend to know what you're crying about but I'm sure you'll cheer up now. Rosamund?"
She beckoned her daughter over, only six years old but already so like her in mannerisms, and even looks, although the Countess of Grantham's orange hair was already becoming peppered with grey. "Cheer up Rosamund," Violet stated simply. "No man will ever want to marry a girl with such a sulky face." She pecked her daughter's cheek and thrust her towards the governess. Children were so exhausting.
Rosamund kept herself awake that night sitting smugly up in bed with a huge book of fairy tales propped against her sloping knees and a guttering candle that was resting rather precariously on the dresser beside her bed. Several times throughout the night her eyes became grainy and threatened to droop shut but each time she rubbed them furiously, never once allowing herself to even contemplate sleep.
If she slept then she might not wake up when midnight eventually came and her plans would amount to nothing. That would never do. She pulled back the warm blankets from where they were clutched around her body and then stripped off the cosy dressing gown she was wearing too. Surely, the colder and less comfortable she was the less likely she was to sleep?
When Rosamund heard the clock out in the passageway strike twelve at last the book was no longer being read and used instead as some form of duvet cover, and she'd pulled her hair from its night time braid so that it fell in a tangled mess around her shivering shoulders. It was the beginning of October and not yet deemed cold enough to have the fire lit in the nursery at night, even though it was dropping chilly at a steady rate and the children had been wearing flannel underwear for days.
She scrambled out of bed, wormed her toes into slippers and crawled gratefully back into the gown before she tiptoed across the silent room and through the door that cut her off from Robert. He was lying on his back and snoring slightly, mouth slightly open as he breathed. His limbs twitched as he dreamed.
Rosamund however had no qualms on waking him and prodded him roughly in the back. "Wake up, Robert!" she hissed. He mumbled incoherently and rolled onto his side. "Wake up!" The small boy groaned and sat up slowly.
"Rosy…" he slurred, half dazed with sleep. "What're…what're you doing?"
Rosamund rolled her eyes. "I'm taking you to see the ghosts remember. It's midnight."
"Midnight now?"
"Yes. Midnight now."
"Alright then." Robert practically toppled off the side of his bed. He looked up at the hooks on the back of the door where his own dressing gown hung. "Can you reach that for me, Rosy?" he asked suddenly. "I'm cold." It was dark green in colour and the warmest thing that he owned.
Rosamund smiled silkily at him, baring her teeth. No he certainly could not have his dressing gown! She wanted her brother to be as scared as humanely possible tonight and the comfort of soft wool over his stripy pyjamas would thoroughly detract from the experience.
"No I can't," she lied. "It's too high to reach."
Robert sighed. "Alright. But Rosy I'm cold!" He scrabbled under the bed and pulled out his own slippers, tugging them over his toes and then hitching his pyjamas up a little firmer.
Rosamund just shrugged. "You'll warm up when we get walking," she murmured, and reached out and took Robert by the hand, towing him towards the door. "Now we've got to be quiet," she whispered as they went. "If we wake mama and papa or the governess we'll get into fearful trouble."
"Don't they know about the ghosts?" Robert's tones were awestruck, hushed. His sister knew greater things than their parents! She had conversed with the dead, and not been scared! Robert decided that there was nothing Rosamund couldn't do. She was equal to a queen.
"No they don't know," Rosamund said tersely as they continued down the corridor. "And we don't want them to know, do we?"
She looked down into Robert's face and supressed a laugh as she tugged open the door to the attic staircase. Honestly, he looked so adoring! She could tell him to do anything, and he'd undoubtedly do it.
She pulled him up the stairs, and his feet caught at the edges of the uncarpeted ledges with dull thuds. "Shush!" Rosamund warned menacingly. "They'll hear you!"
Robert had his thumb perilously close to his mouth. "'Orry," he whispered, and stuck it right in. Was this a good idea? It was for the first time since Rosamund had suggested the little trip that he began to wonder if maybe it mightn't be the most fun experience. The ghosts might not be friendly. All the ghosts in the stories Rosy wasn't supposed to tell him but did anyway were especially nasty, and what if the ghosts up there were like that? What if they ate him?
He certainly didn't want to be eaten. But Rosy's talked to them before hasn't she? He reasoned with himself. She hadn't been eaten. So it must be alright. He nodded firmly at his own logic, but didn't take his hands from his mouth all the same as he continued to stumble up the staircase behind his elder sister.
They climbed for what seemed to be forever, and Robert was intensely relieved when they reached the top. "Here we are," Rosamund said slowly. She adopted a mystical voice. "If you go in and say...say…abbra cadabra three times over, and twirl on the spot," she instructed, "then granny will come out and you can talk to her. If you ask her nicely she might even summon up some of her ghostly friends. So go in!"
She propelled Robert through the door, then moved to shut it. "Aren't you coming in with me?" he asked her, confused.
"No," she replied sweetly. "Granny's not interested in me!"
Then she slammed the door in his face, leaving him in the darkness. He heard her cackling with laughter as she ran deep into the unknown.
And now he was alone. Oh god.
Rosamund had shut the door hard and try as he might he couldn't get the handle to turn. He craned his neck around slowly, hardly daring to look deep into the attic properly; he was so terrified about what he might find without Rosy here to protect him. And Rosamund had certainly done her job well. The boxes and bags and whatever that was in the corner that looked like a coffin were hulking and dark, casting odd shadows on his face and across the floor. He could hear ominous rustling sounds that might be mice coming from what appeared to be high above his head, and the only light he could see was a thin silver slither of moonlight that was peeking through a window around the corner.
Experimentally he screwed his eyes up, to see if it would be any better when he opened them.
It wasn't.
He genuinely couldn't see a thing and the prospect of ghosts was something he just physically couldn't stomach but on the other hand, a comforting ghostly presence might be what he needed? If granny was as kind as Rosy promised then no doubt she'd help to quell his fear. He began to revolve slowly, as Rosamund had said, eyes still shut, mumbling nonsense under his breath, still sucking his fingers for comfort.
But the spinning only made him dizzy and when nothing happened, he staggered forward lest the ghosts should be hiding further in, and, not looking where he was going, tripped over a broom handle and fell smack on his face with a resounding crash. Robert lay silent, winded and stunned for only a moment, and then he pain in his knees kicked in and he opened his mouth wide and began to scream.
"ROSY!" he bellowed, uncaring if he was heard by mama or not. He rather wanted her to hear him. "ROSY! I don't like it!" his screams were only intensified when no one came.
"ROSY! ROSY!"
Nothing happened.
"ROSY!"
His sobs continued to increase in pitch and volume, and he flung himself onto the floor again, beginning to reach hysterical levels of anguish. Robert's noise had clearly alerted someone by now for footsteps were heard thundering up the stairs, the door was wrenched open, and the governess was on the threshold, holding a burning oil lamp that at once expelled the darkness, and followed by Violet herself, wearing a large tartan dressing gown and frilly nightcap that was tucked under her chin and tied firmly with a silky white ribbon.
At that moment, Robert knew he had never seen anything more glorious in his life. His mother. She had come to save him! Robert screeched "Mummy!" as he launched himself into her arms. "Oh mummy, mummy!"
Violet had witnessed many things in her time but nothing could have prepared her for the sight of her precious son lying on the floor in hysterics in the attic. She patted his head as he clutched himself into her and firmly kissed him. "What in the world are you doing here, Robert?" she sighed, not without a trace of impatience. "Locked in the attic at this hour indeed!"
The governess came properly into the room, putting her lamp on the top of a glass cabinet and really illuminating the room once and for all.
Robert looked up into his mother with big trusting eyes. "It was Rosy," he mumbled in between little hiccuping sobs. "She told me there were ghosts. She said I could talk to grandmamma." He took in a deep, shuddering breath, rubbing his nose absently against his mother's shoulder. "But then Rosy locked me in, and I don't think I want to talk to granny anymore!"
"I see." Violet's tones were the epitome of disapproval. It was so typical of Rosamund to pull some sort of silly, immature joke like this, and at the same time Violet was rather irritated that Robert was as gullible to fall for such a trick, even if he was only three. "And where is Rosamund now?"
Robert raised a chubby, shaky finger, sill coated in tears and drool, and pointed to a level just beyond his mother's right shoulder, where his big sister who had snuck back into the room without anyone noticing was veritably rolling around on the floor with laughter because she'd worked her brother into such a frenzy that he'd peed in his trousers. Damp trousers and hysterics! Oh her plan had been successful than she could ever have dreamed.
And it still makes her laugh, over forty years on. Even if Robert claims to have no memory of it.