Annabelle and the Antique Rose

Stories for Another Day

In an ordinary town, there was a shop in a back street with an old, worn sign that said, ‘Antiques’. It was a small, dark shop that most people overlooked, and it didn’t actually sell antiques. It sold things of power.

What made them things of power was that they had been held or carried by people in times of great struggle, when hearts were changed and often blood was spilled. There was a cross that had been carried into battle in hot, desert lands and had been passed from dying hand to dying hand. There was a ragged scrap of cloth that was said to have once been part of a cloak that made its wearer invisible. There was a pebble that had brought down a giant, and silken lasso that had once been used to capture a unicorn, and a diamond that is better not spoken about. There was even a piece of burnt wood that had saved a whole city.

Few people ever went into the shop, except the very curious, or the very desperate.

A woman named Annabelle lived in the town. She had three little boys, but the middle one, Leverett, gave her the most trouble. Annabelle had been born in a distant country, the daughter of a wealthy and noble family, but she had a cousin named Branley, who wanted their wealth all for himself. He stole her away from her family in the middle of the night, and hid her in an empty barrel in a cart that was taking goods and furniture a long, long, way away. When the cart arrived at its destination, no-one knew who the baby girl was, or where she had come from. Her parents searched for her without ceasing, but they could find no trace of her. So then all the wealth in the family passed to Branley.

The lost baby girl was put into a hospital with lots of other children who had been separated from their families. After a long while, when it was clear that no-one was coming to claim her, she was taken in by a family who needed a servant. It was them who gave her the name, Annabelle. She was a good worker, strong and hard-working. In time she married a man that she loved deeply, and they were blessed with three sons before he died. Although she continued to work long, hard hours, the money never seemed to go far enough, with three growing boys. Annabelle often caught herself sighing over another pair of pants that had been grown out of, or another pair of shoes that were worn out, and wondering where the money for new ones was going to come from. Which is why, on Leverett’s ninth birthday, she found herself at the shop with a sign that said, ‘Antiques’.

Leverett had a few coins that his mother had given him to buy himself a gift, and he had come along with his mother to spend them because, he said, who knows what she might buy for him if there was no-one to tell her what was rubbish and what was not?

Inside the shop, the shopkeeper sat behind his counter, with two piles of very old and very dull books in front of him. When he finished reading one, he would immediately put it on the second pile and take another book from the first pile and start reading again. He rarely moved out of his chair, because people very rarely bought anything, and this was the reason why.

The things of power in his shop looked like so many bits of useless junk, unless for some reason the right person came into the shop. Someone like you or me might go in and out of the shop ten times and never find anything worth buying. But certain people for whatever reason would find themselves drawn to this corner or that. They would see something that you or I would think was junk and never even bother to pick up, and it would seem to speak to them. Then if they picked it up, they had to have it, no matter what the cost. They couldn’t put the thing down, and the thing wouldn’t let them put it down.

When Annabelle and Leverett walked in, the owner paid them no attention, but just turned another page and kept on reading.

“Now don’t touch anything and don’t break anything,” Annabelle said to her son. She had had experience before of having to pay for something that Leverett had dropped or broken that neither of them had wanted.

The shop seemed nicer inside than it had from the outside. Annabelle drifted from table to shelf to cabinet, touching here, brushing her fingertips there, feeling a gentle contentment steal over her. Something was calling her. Something in an old desk under a pile of legless chairs and cups without handles and battered hat-boxes. She ran her fingers over the wood of the desk and then, for no reason at all, she opened the second drawer on the left. Every other person who had ever tried that drawer had found it jammed shut, but for Annabelle it slid open easily. Inside was something that took her breath away.

It was a rose, made entirely of glass. Each petal was made separately and joined together in an intricate pattern of crimson and dark pink. Even in the gloom of the shop it glowed a deep, rich red. Three leaves made of silver as finely shaped as any real rose leaf, were attached to the delicate green stem. Annabelle reached out and picked it up.

Leverett’s head popped up at her elbow. “What’s that?” he said.

Annabelle nearly dropped the glass rose. “It’s… a rose,” she said wonderingly.

“I don’t want a flower for my birthday,” Leverett exclaimed in disgust. “There’s a slingshot over there, and I found a brilliant crossbow. “

“No crossbows, no weapons of any kind,” Annabelle said automatically. She could hardly take her eyes off the rose. Besides, she had had experience of Leverett being sent home from school for making weapons out of perfectly ordinary things like a pencil or a hair elastic.

He reached past her and picked up a rock hidden in the darkness at the back of the drawer. “Can I have this?” he said, his fingers closing on it tightly.

“No stones, no rocks, nothing you can throw at anyone,” Annabelle repeated, as if it was a lesson she had learnt very well, which it was.

Leverett said, “It’s my birthday, you said I can have whatever I want,” which she certainly had not.

“Oh, all right!” Annabelle said. She couldn’t put the rose down. “I wonder how much… if I could afford…” They went up to the counter together. The man looked at them sharply for a moment, but then he named a price so low that Annabelle could hardly believe it. She gave the man the money, but when they turned to leave the shop, Leverett, rushing as usual, bumped up against her and his rock struck the rose. There was a tinkling crash and an exclamation. A petal had broken off the rose and stabbed into Annabelle’s finger.

It hurt much more than you’d think, for such a small cut. The man behind the counter said, “You should get that seen to.” Annabelle wasn’t sure if he meant the broken rose or the cut. He reached under the counter and found a small card which he tossed to her. It said, ‘Branley’s Jewellers’.

By now the cut was hurting so much that Annabelle could barely think. Leverett shoved his rock into his pocket and pushed her outside. The address on the card was nearby, only a few streets away. Leverett grabbed her arm and pulled her along.

The jeweller’s shop was even dingier than the antique shop. The windows were so thick with grime that you couldn’t see in, and the paint was peeling off the door and the windowsills. Leverett pushed the door open and dragged his mother in. Her face was white as paper and she was clutching the rose to her chest.

At a small table in the middle of the room, a man was sitting, moodily picking over a pile of jewellery, old-fashioned garnets, rubies in a broken necklace, a shabby sapphire bracelet and a lot of other things. He looked up as the door opened. When he saw Annabelle, he jumped up and hissed, “You!”

It was, of course, Annabelle’s cousin, Branley. All those years ago, when he had gotten rid of Annabelle, he had taken over the family business. Her parents had lost heart when they lost their daughter and they had left everything to Branley to run. He turned out to be a very poor businessman, mostly because although he knew all there was to know about precious stones, he loved them so much that once he had them in his hands he couldn’t bear to sell them again. All the family’s wealth had run through his fingers and trickled away. All that was left was this dingy shop that no customers ever came to, and a large safe, full to bursting with precious jewels of every kind.

Annabelle said faintly, “What do you mean?” She had no idea who he was, since she had been a baby when she last saw him. She only knew that if the pain didn’t stop soon, she was going to faint.

Leverett, who was poking around, looking at things and touching things he shouldn’t, suddenly said, “Look at this!” He was pointing to a life-size painting in a dark corner, of a woman who looked exactly like his mother, holding the very same glass rose in her hand. “It’s you!” he said.

“It can’t be,” Annabelle faltered. “My hair is different, and I would never wear a dress like that.” The woman in the painting was dressed in a red velvet ballgown, and her hair was long and fair, unlike Annabelle’s, which was short and dark.

“It is your mother, my dear,” said a deep, quiet voice from the doorway behind Branley. An old lady leaning on a stick came very slowly into the room. “You are her daughter, Roseanne.”

“My name is Annabelle, not Roseanne,” Annabelle said. “I don’t have a mother, or a father.”

The old lady shook her head. “You must be Roseanne. You look so much like your mother, there can be no mistake. And besides, you have the rose.”

“I have the rose,” Annabelle said, wonderingly.

“She broke it,” Leverett said, not entirely truthfully. “She cut her finger.”

For the first time, Annabelle noticed that the pain had gone, and when she looked, her finger was completely healed.

“Let me see the rose,” Branley said, reaching greedy fingers for it. If he could destroy it, smash it to tiny pieces with his jeweller’s hammer, then there would be no proof that this was his long-lost cousin. She would just be someone who looked like a woman in a painting.

“No!” the grandmother’s voice was icy and commanding. “Give it to me.” Annabelle gave her the rose and the broken piece. With deft fingers the old lady fitted the pieces back together again. “I was the one who made this rose,” she said, her voice warm again. “It was my gift to my daughter, when she was born, and it should be returned to her.”

“My mother?” stammered Annabelle. “Is she still alive?”

“Certainly, and your father, too,” the old lady said. “Their hearts were broken when you disappeared, and they lost all interest in everything else. They live very quietly in our old home. I came here from our own country just a short while ago, to try to save the business that Branley has ruined.”

“It’s mine,” Branley said, savagely. “Even if you are Roseanne, you can’t take it away from me. Your parents handed the business over to me years ago.”

Just then, Leverett, bored again, took his rock out of his pocket and began tossing it in the air and catching it, endangering several windows and glass cabinets. Branley’s attention was caught immediately. “What is that?” he said. “Give it to me!”

“It’s mine,” Leverett said. “I bought it with my own money and it’s mine.”

What it was in fact, was a fabulously large diamond, perfectly cut, covered with layers and layers of grime and dirt. Branley, who knew precious stones and loved them more than anything or anyone, knew it at once for what it was.

“Give it to me,” he whispered. “I must have it.”

“It’s mine,” Leverett repeated stubbornly.

“I’ll buy it from you,” Branley insisted. “I’ll give you anything.”

Leverett considered. There was only so much fun you could have with a rock. “All those jewels?” he asked.

“Yes,” Branley snapped.

“… and this shop?” Leverett asked.

“Yes!”

“… and everything in it?” Leverett asked.

This time Branley hesitated. He was thinking about the extra large safe, bursting with gold and precious stones. Then the diamond caught his eye again, and he couldn’t help himself. “Very well,” he said. “This shop and everything in it.”

Leverett held out the diamond and Branley practically snatched it from his hand. With eyes for nothing else, he walked out of the shop without a word of farewell, and never came back.

The shop, after Annabelle had scrubbed it from top to bottom and cleaned the windows and painted everything there was to paint, became very successful. With her grandmother to teach her the business and train her in the jeweller’s art, she became an excellent jeweller, and so did her two of her sons after her. Her parents soon came to join them, and the business did well, and they became as happy and as well off as the family had once been.

Leverett of course had no patience for something as ordinary as a shop. When he was old enough, he used his money to build racing cars and he became the most famous racing car driver in the world.

But what became of the diamond, now that is a story for another day.