100. A Rose In Jeopardy by Barbara Cartland

lumpy mattress that lay on the floorboards and gave him a piece of bread from her last night’s supper.
    “ Can I have a nut ?” he asked, looking at the bread with his head on one side.
    “Shh, now Pickle!” Rosella whispered. “We must not wake the baby!”
    But it was too late. From downstairs she could hear that young Peter was already starting to cry.
    Sarah, the sister-in-law of Thomas, the gardener’s boy, had been delighted to take Rosella in.
    Her husband, a sailor, was away on a long voyage and with two small children and a new baby, she was very glad of the money that Rosella could give her.
    But the cottage where they lived was very crowded and Pickle was nervous of the children.
    And he nipped their fingers when they tried to push their little hands through the bars of his cage to stroke him.
    And so Rosella had to keep him in the garret, which was so small and cramped that she could only just stand up right in the very middle of the one room.
    If she left him on his own, he would scream loudly and call for her, which was most unpleasant for Sarah and her family, so whenever Rosella went out from the cottage, he had to go with her.
    She sighed as she thought about the many hours she had spent walking along the streets of London, carrying the heavy parrot cage, as she tried to find someone who would offer her employment.
    Several agencies, which found positions for young ladies, had produced introductions for her, in spite of the fact that she had no experience of being a Governess or a lady’s companion.
    Rosella’s charming manners and well-spoken voice meant that many of the potential employers she had visited would have been happy to take her on.
    But Pickle, alas, did not have these assets and there was no one at all who would be prepared to offer the noisy bird a home alongside his Mistress.
    “What shall we do?” Rosella asked him, as the bird reluctantly began to nibble on a piece of dry bread. “Sarah is very kind, but we cannot stay here for ever.”
    Downstairs Sarah’s children had also woken up and were shouting for their breakfast.
    Rosella got up from her mattress and washed her face and hands in the cracked bowl Sarah had given her.
    Then she put on her favourite blue dress and began to comb her hair.
    ‘I must not be despondent,’ she now told herself. ‘I must carry on, bravely and smiling.’
    She thought with longing of the picture she had left behind hanging on her bedroom wall.
    If only she could see that young man’s happy smile this morning. Surely he would give her the strength and courage to set off again and find her way forward.
    But she would never see him again, as she could never go back to New Hall.
    Sadly Rosella picked up the old coat that Thomas had given her from where she had laid it on the floor last night, as there was no place to hang clothes in the garret.
    She was just folding it and laying it on the mattress, when she recalled what had happened when she walked down to the river last night.
    She had met a young man with a handsome face not so very different from the man in the painting, except that, in spite of the outlandish cloak and big hat – which would not have looked at all out of place in a painting – this was a very real person with black hair and brown eyes.
    Because of his eyes and his strange clothes, Rosella had assumed that he was a foreigner and she smiled, as she remembered how surprised she was when he spoke to her in perfect English.
    Then she recalled what he had given her.
    Rosella fumbled in the pocket of the coat and found the small rectangle of cardboard – the calling card of a Contessa from Italy.
    Rosella’s heart sank a little at the thought of having to face yet another interview and another rejection.
    It was kind of the young man to give her this, but surely a Contessa, who lived in a Palazzo, would have no time for a very young English girl, who had no experience and a very noisy parrot she would not be parted from.
    When