Page 31 of Blueprints, Battlelines and Ballrooms (Tales from Honeysuckle Street #4)

Chapter Twenty

It had been a good plan. There was nothing wrong with it. It was full of familiar places. A loving family. A future. A set, steady, no-surprises future.

And she had said no. Even when he’d spilled his heart onto the floor before her, she’d turned away. He and Mr Holt had parted ways, and who knew what would become of the submission. Johannes couldn’t find it within himself to care.

In trying to keep Florence safe, he’d somehow lost her forever.

Johannes placed his hand on the door handle, then braced himself for the chaos of home.

Perhaps Elliot would want to explode some rockets tonight.

That might take the edge off his hurt. Or Ammie might want to go to the park.

He could take Thaddeus and Hazel to see the ducks by the pond and surround himself with distractions until he could come up with a new plan.

He tipped an ear to listen. The shouts and calls of his siblings could usually be heard down the length and breadth of Honeysuckle Street, but this afternoon, no noise carried on the breeze.

‘Johannes!’ Just a few feet away on the landing of Number 1, Beatrice bent across the rail. ‘We’re all in here. Rosie’s having the baby.’

‘The baby’s arriving?’ He clipped down the stairs, strode the short distance to the other house, then ran up the mirror set of stairs. ‘Do Rosie and Phineas want people in their house for this?’

Beatrice laughed, high and shallow. ‘As if they have a choice.’ And then even the brassy hollowness of her laugh left her next words. ‘Mother has called the doctor.’

‘The doctor?’ An icy hand wrapped around his heart, and for a moment he could not breathe. ‘What about the midwife?’

‘She said something about the baby being the wrong way around. They needed help. They’re all up there. Even Phineas.’

His feet carried him over the threshold.

The quiet unease of his siblings hummed ominously through the air.

In the front room, Ammie and Nova sat along the window seat with their legs dangling, while Ottile and Thaddeus curled into one of the large chairs.

Nanny Abagail rested in the other, plucking the frills of her apron straight.

Elliot leant against a wall and scanned the library for books he had no intention of reading.

Even little Hazel sat quietly as she picked at tufts of loose wool on the rug.

Beatrice tapped the tip of each finger against the opposite hand before she rubbed her knuckles together.

‘The baby started coming in the night. Rosie sent for Mother mid-morning. A few hours ago, Mother sent the housekeeper Letitia to tell Father to call the doctor. He came over, and we all followed. No one told us to go, so we stayed.’

Never one for inaction, Father stalked the library, then moved out into the hallway, where he paced in a circle by the bottom of the stairs.

He stared up into the cavity for an age before marching back into the library again.

As he entered the room, all the children lifted expectant faces to him, but when they found only the thin, grim line of his lips, they returned to their small distractions.

Rosie couldn’t be having a hard time. Not at this, not at something so commonplace as having a baby.

She wanted to be a mother, and Rosie always got what she wanted.

She took the world and shook it with a single-minded determination and demanded nothing less than everything.

Every hazy memory, almost every single moment of his childhood that he’d shared with her seemed to flood Johannes at once.

The way they’d run through the park or weaved through scaffolding at the hotel.

The way they’d sneaked into the kitchens to steal cake and ice cream, even though sneaking was pointless as Grandpa Robert gave them everything they asked for.

There couldn’t be a world without Rosie because that wasn’t a world that made sense.

She was in every page of his past. She had to be in his future.

And all his family. They anchored him. Gave him a place.

He knew who he was with all of them, even if that was the son who didn’t quite fit.

Even Garnett’s loss was a shared presence between them.

They all made sense, every single one of them with the other, even as they squashed into small bedrooms and jostled around the dining table. Nothing could change.

Johannes crossed the room. Ammie scooted over to make a space on the window seat, and as Johannes sat, Nova crawled onto his lap and cuddled against his chest. He remembered every one of them coming into the world—even Elliot was a blotchy memory of pudgy fists and kicking limbs.

And there, just across the road, in the rubble of Number 6, was the place where he’d thought to take that next step in what was, really, a very good plan.

Marry. Start a firm. Take on work. Build a reputation and a career, then a life.

Slow, yet steady. Predictable. A world at his pace.

What was his plan now?

The stairs creaked. And again. Footsteps thumped through the hall in an uneasy stumble, then Phineas staggered into the room. His hair stuck out at odd angles, and his waistcoat sat uneven. He wiped his palm over weary eyes as he blinked rapidly, but it did not stop them from filling with tears.

Nova tensed against him. Johannes held his breath.

‘She… she…’ Phineas stepped back and then into the room again. ‘It’s a she. A daughter. We have a daughter.’

‘And Rosie?’ Beatrice asked.

‘She’s tired. The doctor won’t say, but your mother thinks…’

‘She’s come through.’ Mother stepped into the doorway beside Phineas, her smile the sunshine that lit their family. She wrapped an arm around Phineas and pulled him tight against her side. ‘As if anything could stop our Rosie.’

In a world of chaos and confusion, of loss and grief, where a sniffle could turn into a deadly illness, the words of Wilhemina Hempel were gospel to their clan.

If Mother said Rosie was out of danger, then the doctor’s hesitation didn’t matter—it was true.

In the next moment, all the tension, quiet, and pent-up worry fled the room as the children erupted into hollers and cheers.

They all clambered out of their seats and swarmed the messengers.

‘No visitors!’ Mother said with a laugh. ‘She needs to rest. Jean has been keeping herself busy with baking. You can go down to the kitchen and see what she has made.’

The offer of food was greeted with even more celebration than the news that Rosie was well, and soon, the library emptied as the children leapt to make their way downstairs.

Johannes waited for his siblings to pass by, then stopped to hang his coat in the room behind the entrance hall. The stairs creaked.

‘What are you doing?’ Johannes scolded. ‘Mother said no visitors.’

Father froze with one hand on the banister and his feet on uneven stairs. He gave Johannes a conspiratorial smile. ‘We can be quiet. Let’s go see Rosie and the baby.’

Of all the mischievous Hempel children, none were as terrible as his father. Johannes checked the hall was empty and then, with steps as quiet as he could make them, crept to the next floor. His father tapped the door gently, then squeaked it open.

Summer breathed into the room. The curtains from one window fluttered in the breeze, even as a low fire cracked in the hearth.

Rosie, in a clean night gown and with her hair loose, was lying back against fresh white pillows.

As they entered, Phineas tugged the quilt a little higher around her and the little bundle at her chest. Normally so stern and stoic, his brother-in-law regarded his wife and child with cautious awe while Rosie blinked with fatigue and smiled like she had never doubted herself.

The midwife and Letitia clucked and chatted to one another as they gathered up sheets and towels into cane baskets before taking their leave.

Father stopped beside Mother, who was standing by the head of the bed. ‘You gave us a scare Rosie. Don’t do that again, you hear me?’ he said.

‘Stop it, grandpa.’ Rosie winced as she pushed herself up a little. ‘I was in the best of hands.’

Father kissed Mother’s forehead. ‘Not bad yourself, my girl. Where would we all be without you?’

Father slipped his hands around the small, blanket-wrapped bundle beside Rosie and lifted his granddaughter to his chest. Unlike so many fathers, Lawrence Hempel had never hesitated to take his children into his arms. He rocked the babe with the steady sway that he must have learnt at the orphanage, where there were too many cries and not enough gentle hands to soothe them.

Phineas methodically checked the sheets and blankets until Rosie waved him away with a reassurance that she did not need more pillows.

The cradle Johannes had made already waited beside the bed, and Phineas busied himself with straightening its sheets and blankets instead.

Rosanna’s tired gaze drifted between them all, then lingered on Johannes.

‘What’s happened?’ Rosie asked from her white cotton mountain.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

‘You cannot put me off.’ Her tone was stern, if weary. ‘I know you too well. What’s the matter?’

He held his heartbreak against his chest. This was Rosie’s day, not his, but with a raise of her brow, he knew there was no escape.

‘Florence doesn’t want to marry me.’ He spoke to the floor.

‘She doesn’t want me to build her a house at Number 6.

She doesn’t want to work with me. I love her, and I’m certain she feels the same.

I had a plan. I thought I had my life worked out. Now, I don’t know what to do.’

‘Why in heaven’s name would you want a plan?’ his father asked.

‘Because then I’d know where I was heading. Like you, with the hotels, and the business and—’

His parents chuckled.

‘You think we had a plan?’ Father shook his head. ‘We had no idea what we were doing. We still don’t. You think we planned ten children? Or that I wanted my daughter to marry the man who stole your mother’s windows?’

Phineas squawked an objection. Rosie rolled her eyes.

‘Work and opportunity go hand in hand with the dream,’ Mother said, her voice rich, warm, and proud. ‘Some things can’t be planned, Uncle Yo-yo. And you’ll discover that those are the best bits of all.’

Still rocking the bundle, Father crossed the room.

Unthinking, Johannes automatically raised his arms as he had done a hundred, a thousand times before.

With a coo and a whisper, his niece was eased into them.

She squinted her eyes and snuffled against the blanket before her tiny mouth distorted into a lopsided yawn.

‘Does she have a name?’ he asked.

‘Elizabeth, after Phineas’s mother,’ Rosie said. ‘While she’s little, we’ll call her Betty.’

‘Betty Babbage.’ He laughed, then hushed when his niece frowned. ‘Welcome to Honeysuckle Street, little Betty.’

A world of possibilities, of endless wonder, of infinite dreams…

it was just waiting to be grasped in her tiny, clenched fist. She would skin her knee in the street, she would climb trees in the park, she would learn how to read, and she’d create her own eternity.

Maybe one day she’d have a brother or sister to rule the street with, but until then, she’d have the younger Hempel children to watch over her.

It would be a childhood so much like their own, but also so very different.

Johannes looked to his sister. Phineas pressed a kiss to the top of Rosanna’s head and smoothed a loose curl.

A jolt of realisation thumped hard through his chest. His sister was now a mother.

She had grown and changed. They’d always be the best of friends, but things weren’t like they had been before.

He rocked his niece. He’d been so preoccupied in trying to hold his world still, he’d completely missed that everything had already changed.

It was incredibly exciting. Thrilling. An adventure, even.

The vastness of it all felt terrifying, too, filled equally with dread and wonder.

And Johannes, ever so thorough and cautious, finally understood.

He had tried to build fences around Florence.

He had hemmed her in. In trying to care for her, he’d trapped her.

She didn’t want to be master of the world. Just her own.

As clear as lines on blueprints, he now saw not a future or a grand plan—but only a step.

A single, exhilarating step.

The door squeaked. Little murmurs and shuffles on the carpet announced the arrival of the rest of the Hempel entourage. Ammie led the line. ‘Nanny Abagail said we had to wash our hands. And whisper. And sit in the corner. If we do all those things, can we meet the baby?’

The uneven little group with ruffled hair and freckles from too much time at play filed into the room. Hazel gave a happy gurgle when she spotted Phineas and launched herself at him to wrap around his shins. Phineas hoisted her into his arms and propped her up on his hip.

God, he loved them. He loved being in the thick of their drama. Loved walking them to the park. He loved mediating their fights or helping them with their readers and sitting down at the long table with them every night.

He was going to miss special birthdays at the hotel. He was going to miss so many wonderful things. He would miss them all so much.

Johannes eased the swaddled Betty into Beatrice’s waiting arms. The rest of the children jostled one another, desperately trying to behave and yet helpless against their excitement. With a nod to Rosanna, he left his siblings to meet their niece.

On the stairs, he almost collided with Elise. ‘I was just coming to find you,’ he said. ‘I need to talk to you about Number 6. I… I don’t want to buy it. I’ve changed my mind.’

‘That is good news,’ Elise replied with an excited clap of her hands. ‘Because I do not wish to sell. I have a plan of my own.’