Clementine Rose and the Surprise Visitor 1 by Jacqueline Harvey Page A

and get a move on,’ Digby said as he glanced into the van. They were entertaining three guests that evening. It wasn’t exactly a full house, but more visitors than in the past few weekends. Perhaps things were looking up.
    Digby pulled the basket towards him. He picked it up from the edge of the van and staggered under the weight.
    ‘Good grief, man! What did you put in these rolls? Bricks?’ Digby exclaimed.
    ‘What do you mean?’ asked Pierre, looking shocked.
    Digby Pertwhistle handed him the basket and Pierre strained under the unexpected weight. ‘ Sacrebleu! My rolls are as light as a feather. That rotten Claws, he must be ’iding in the bottom of this basket. My bread will be ruined.’
    Pierre lifted the tea towel that was covering the rolls.
    His mouth fell open. He looked, then gently put the basket back down in the van, rubbed his eyes and looked again.
    Digby Pertwhistle looked too.
    Both men stared at each other and then at the basket. Fresh white dinner rolls surrounded a tiny face with rose-pink lips and bright blue eyes.
    Pierre finally found his voice. ‘That’s not Claws. It’s a baby.’
    ‘It’s a baby, all right,’ Digby agreed. ‘But where did it come from? And more importantly, who does it belong to?’
    Pierre reached into the basket and gently lifted the infant out. It was dressed in a pink jumpsuit and had a fluffy white blanket around it. Pinned to the blanket was an envelope addressed to Lady Clarissa Appleby, Penberthy House.
    ‘It’s not my usual delivery,’ Pierre said. ‘But it is meant for Lady Clarissa.’
    ‘How did the baby get into the van?’ Digby Pertwhistle wondered out loud.
    ‘It must have been when I was at Mrs Mogg’s store,’ Pierre replied. ‘But I don’t remember seeing anyone in the village.’
    Cradling the tiny child in his arms, Pierre Rousseau, followed closely by Digby Pertwhistle, made the most important delivery of his life.
    Lady Clarissa was in the kitchen up to her elbows in washing up. A newborn baby was the last thing she expected on that sunny spring day. But Lady Clarissa took the child’s arrival in her stride, just as she did most things.
    The note pinned to the baby’s blanket read:
    Dear Lady Clarissa ,
    Her name is Clementine Rose and she is yours. The papers attached to this letter say so. No one can take her from you. Please do not look for me. I came on the wind and now I am gone .
    Love her, as I wish I could have done .
    E
    Pierre suggested they call the police. ‘It’s not right to find a baby in a basket of dinner rolls,’ he declared.
    Digby added, ‘It’s not right to find a baby without a mother.’
    But from the moment Lady Clarissa locked eyes with Clementine Rose, a bond was struck. Lady Clarissa was in love. Digby Pertwhistle was too. And the paperwork was all in order.
    The old man bustled about the house finding this and that. He remembered that Lady Clarissa’s baby things had been stored years ago in the attic and, without a word of prompting, he set off to find what he could.
    Pierre disappeared into the village and returned with a box of baby requirements. He bought nappies and formula and even dummies and bibs. He had two young children of his own. His daughter Sophie was just a month old, so he knew a lot about babies.
    ‘Mrs Mogg, she will come and ’elp tonight with your guests,’ he explained.
    Clementine Rose gurgled and cooed, she slept and she ate. But she hardly ever cried. It was as if she knew right from that first moment how much she was loved and adored, even though she was far too young to understand it at all. And over the years she grew up and no one could remember what life had been like before that fateful morning she arrived in the basket of dinner rolls.

C lementine Rose stared at her reflection in the hall mirror. She wrinkled her nose and furrowed her brow and concentrated as hard as she could. She stared and stared, her blue eyes gazing back at her like pools of wet ink. But no