“No.”
“Are they inclined toward botany?”
“No. They are more inclined to excess and dissolution than pursuits such as this.” He shuffled through the pages of one of the journals for a while before he gave up with a sigh. “Do you think it possible to change what one is, Miss Withersby? Fundamentally? At the core?”
“Are you asking again whether a vine could ever become a tree?”
“I suppose that I am.” He looked at me, a crease lining his brow.
“It would seem to be impossible, would it not? Even those plants some believe to be new species are often simply varieties of the old and are prone to reversion.”
“Yes . . . I suppose, in my darkest thoughts, I have often feared the same.”
8
Mr. Trimble’s strange words stayed with me throughout the afternoon, and I pondered his question. Was it possible to change one’s habit? To modify one’s very nature? God created each corn daisy, each stem of hawkweed, each flower, for His purposes to serve at His good pleasure. Did that mean each creation of His was lovely?
It did not.
There were flowers that gave off the most putrid of smells and twining leaves that could cause a most maddening itch. It did not mean, however, that those creations were any less.
They had to have been made by God. Everything was. And what was the alternative, in any case? To not believe in God? To believe in . . . in simple chance? Or magic? The idea seemed preposterous.
I had to believe that even the meanest of creations served God’s purposes. And yet anyone could see there was a great difference between a thorn and a flower and no hope at all of one becoming the other.
If Mr. Trimble’s family was dissolute, as he had said, did it not stand to reason, that he would eventually become the same?
It was a confounding sort of puzzle.
I supposed I must remember that people could make choices that plants could not. Or . . . perhaps Mr. Trimble was the true representation of his family and the others the aberrations. I rather liked the idea that they were the exception rather than him, for—in spite of his taking up my position and his annoying tendency to lecture—the author of all those letters, the possessor of all those hopes and dreams of which he’d written, couldn’t be all bad.
But for how long could one hope to defy one’s own nature? What if I was ignoring God’s divine plan? What if my true calling, my one purpose, was, in fact, to marry and bear offspring? What if my botanical investigations were simply self-serving?
I had never before pursued such lines of reasoning, and the whole idea and the unsatisfactory nature of my conclusions unsettled me. Would it not be wonderful if mankind were more like plants? If their habit was plain and they always did those things for which they were intended?
At ten o’clock the next day, the Admiral sent his carriage round for me, and then I went to fetch Miss Templeton at Dodsley Manor. With many columns and pilasters, arches and parapets decorating its substantial façade, it was equally as decorative as she.
After the footman helped her up, she settled into her seat, shook out the sides of her blue many-caped mantle, and then clasped her gloved hands in seeming glee. “I have never ridden in a Berlin carriage before. Can you believe it? But it’s so spacious, so stately; I wonder why it was ever scorned for the Clarence?”
Indeed it seemed as if she did wonder, for she was looking around the interior as if in amazement. But then she turned her cornflower-blue gaze on me. “In any case, I was ever so excited to read the Admiral’s request. I hadn’t planned on visiting the dressmaker for another month—at least! So what is it you need, Miss Withersby? And how am I to be put to use?”
“I need everything.”
“Everything?”
“Everything. Apparently I’m not suitable.”
“How shockingly delightful! We must make sure my father never finds out. He was so certain, considering how old you are, that you would be an appropriate companion. It’s the only way I could get him to let me go round without an escort—to promise that you would provide the escort for me!”
“You must remember that I’m only doing this to make my father get rid of Mr. Trimble and take me back. With any luck, it should only take a couple more days. You can understand, then, my reluctance to visit the dressmaker.”
“You must never be reluctant to visit a dressmaker.”
“I fear it will be a waste of her time and my uncle’s money.”
“But that’s no reason not to take your wardrobe seriously.”
“What I really need is a new shooting jacket.”
“A new shooting jacket! You say the most extraordinary things. I am going to like being your friend very much.”
“Well, you see, the pockets of my current jacket have the worst holes in them, and just last week, I lost a perfectly good specimen because it dropped right through the seam.”
“Then we’ll add a new shooting jacket to the list.”
“I really don’t know what’s required. Although . . .” I reached down into my reticule for the list. “Mr. Trimble wrote down a few things.”
“Mr. Trimble . . . your father’s new assistant? As if he could know anything at all about the matter!” She sniffed and reached a hand toward me. “The list, if you please.”
I gave it to her.
She tore it in two and let it flutter to the floor. “That’s what I think of Mr. Trimble and his lists! If you have any doubts or questions, just ask me. I will not allow you to go astray. You can depend upon it.”
The dressmaker gestured me over to a velvet-draped corner and said something about cutting my gowns to my stays and for that reason she had better see them, hadn’t she? So she undid my dress, helped me off with it, and turned me round.
“I can’t possibly cut a gown to those!”
I looked down at them and didn’t see anything very objectionable.
“Those stays aren’t even fit to you!”
The dressmaker I’d seen for my London clothes hadn’t objected. “They were fit to my mother, but since she hasn’t any use for them anymore, I didn’t see why—”
“You’re going to have to get new stays before I can do anything with you.” She helped me back on with my dress and then put us both back out onto the street.
I turned to Miss Templeton, who was blinking from our abrupt departure. “I don’t suppose there’s a staymaker in Overwich?”
She nodded and started off. We took care to avoid the channels of foul-smelling brine that ran in rivulets through the streets. I wished I could have avoided the clouds of soot as well, but they seemed to sink toward the ground, filtering the sun’s rays and leaving sooty smudges on the buildings. The town ought to have displayed itself in the sunny golden tones of its sandstone, but thanks to the saltworks, it looked as if it had been doused with dirty dishwater. I always felt as if I ought to bathe whenever I returned from town. Only one of many reasons I avoided Overwich.
Miss Templeton’s disposition, however, did not suffer from the setting. She seemed to know everyone and stopped often to talk. In between her conversations, we visited the staymaker and the glover. It seemed everything required a visit to everywhere. She also extracted a promise from me that we would visit the milliner once we’d ordered my gowns so that we could purchase some hats to match. After two hours had passed, I found myself quite exhausted by the ordeal. I threw myself upon her mercy, hoping to be allowed to go home for a rest before our afternoon visits, but Miss Templeton forbade it. She would not even parole me to a pub.
“We can’t possibly take refreshment while there are still gowns to be ordered. If they aren’t started soonest, you’ll have nothing to wear!”
Back we went to the dressmaker. The woman undressed me once more and sniffed at my new stays when she saw them. “I don’t know if I could call those an improvement.”
“I’ve others on order.”
“At least I’ve something to work with now.” She took my mea
sure and then set about compiling my order. “It’s late in the season, but I assure you we can still provide for your needs. What is it that you desire?”
“I need a dress to make me look like a moonflower.” Remembering the dresses, like Miss Templeton’s, that had been covered in blooms and twisting vines, I thought it best to be specific. “It probably ought to be embroidered with them as well.”
“You want to look like a moonflower . . . ?”
“Exactly, except that the dress should have lots more petals.”
“Petals?”
Miss Templeton was beset by a spasm of coughing. I pounded her on the back until she recovered.
She waved my hand away and then took in a great breath of air. “Miss Withersby means the gown ought to have a great many flounces.”
“But no sepals.” At least not like the kind that my blue dress had.
The dressmaker was peering at me from beneath a furrowed brow. “No . . . ? Have you lately come from the Continent? I haven’t heard these terms you’re using . . .”
“I just don’t like sepals. At least, not on a dress.”
“Sepals? I still don’t quite understand your meaning.”
“Have you got a piece of paper and a pen? I can show you what I mean.”
I made short work of sketching the sort of gowns the women at the dinner party had been wearing.
“Oh! Yes. Of course I can make you a gown in the style of Louis XV, Miss Withersby.”
“But remember, no sepals.”
She made an appeal to Miss Templeton. “Whatever can she mean?”
I took up the pen to sketch in what I didn’t want. “You see most flowers have sepals. Right here, where they join the stem. But I don’t want any.”
“Oh! You mean a redingote. Of course you wouldn’t want that for an evening gown.” She took up the sketch. “Just leave this all to me. I’ll see you’re well taken care of.”
“Mr. Trimble had said that ordering just one dress wouldn’t do. I’m supposed to be like a day lily.”
“A day lily!” The dressmaker muttered the words to herself.
“A different bloom each day.”
“I don’t quite—”
“What Miss Withersby means is that she’ll need five evening gowns, five day gowns, three visiting dresses, a mantle, a cloak, and . . . and a promenade dress.”
The woman wrote up the order, shaking her head all the while. “And I suppose you’ll want all of these tomorrow.”
“I would be much obliged.”
Miss Templeton laid a hand on my arm. “By the end of the week she’ll need two of the evening gowns, and really, she ought to have one of the visiting dresses tomorrow.”
The woman’s brow rose. “We will proceed as quickly as we can, but even I cannot perform miracles.”
I couldn’t let my most urgent request go unmet, however. “I hate to add one more thing to the list, but I’ll also need a new shooting jacket.”
Miss Templeton grasped my arm. “Oh! And do order a new skirt as well to go with it!”
“I don’t think I really need—”
She smiled. “We’ll just add it to the list.”
After leaving the dressmaker, we went to Woodside to get the Admiral and then presented ourselves to Mr. Stansbury at Overwich Hall.
Miss Templeton looked round the front hall with great excitement. She took hold of my arm and stepped close. “I’ve never been here before!”
“Neither have I.”
“It’s just like a setting for an opera.” Her eyes were full of wonder.
I’d never been to an opera before, but if the setting consisted of vivid reds and gleaming wood, colonnaded balconies and ivory-colored plasterwork, then she was right.
“Would you like to see my glasshouse?”
The Admiral grunted while Miss Templeton clapped her hands. “Oh, yes!”
Mr. Stansbury showed us the way with a sweep of his arm.
We walked through a series of twisting hallways and then the house seemed to leave off and give way to a green-tinted, light-filled paradise of soaring heights, copious plants, and . . . were those parrots?
“I started out collecting orchids.” He showed us several baize-lined shelves of orchids. “And then I decided to add some orange trees.” They lined the long central aisle on both sides. “And then some ferns.” These made up an enormous mountain reaching nearly to the roof, from which cascaded a waterfall in miniature. “And then I started on palms.”
“How clever you are! How delightful this is!” Miss Templeton leaned over to sniff at an orchid.
“It has no fragrance.” Mr. Stansbury and I cautioned her at the same moment.
His lips turned up in a smile as he met my glance. He took her by the elbow and gestured across the path toward an orange tree. “But these do.” As they wandered down the aisle together, I left the Admiral admiring a fountain and walked down the path in the opposite direction toward some more orchids. It was there that Mr. Stansbury rejoined me.
I fingered an orchid’s leaves. “Are you quite sure this is an aloifolium?”
“That’s what my correspondent said. See there? He wrote it on the label.”
“Because it looks rather more like a dayanum to me.” I considered myself more knowledgeable than most, since my father and I had spent so many hours dissecting those species.
He pointed to a third plant. “I’ve a dayanum just there, though it’s hardly budded.”
“I wonder if your correspondent got the two confused . . .” I read the label on another in his collection and stroked its long pointed leaves. “And are you certain this one isn’t just a grass?”
“I should hope not. I paid thirty pounds for it!”
“Has it bloomed yet?”
He frowned. “Not that I can remember.”
“It can be quite difficult to identify a plant if you haven’t seen its flower. It could be almost anything.”
“I’ve been told I have the finest collection of orchids in the realm.”
Miss Templeton had rejoined us by that point. “Miss Withersby knows ever so much about plants. She’s practically a genius. Her father is working on some volumes about orchids.”
“Withersby! I knew I’d heard that name before. Your father is the author of A Complete Account of the Orchid in the Empire? And its companion volume, Ranunculaceae in Britain?”
“He is . . . although it wasn’t quite as complete as he had hoped, so he’s writing another volume.” I, in fact, had written most of the Ranunculaceae book. And I had illustrated all of it.
“You’re one of those Withersbys? I have those books! Both of them.” He gave me a keen-eyed glance. “Forgive me for saying this: I thought your criticisms just now ill-founded, but perhaps you’re correct. Could I trouble you to return when my orchid has bloomed? Then you can view it for yourself. If my correspondent turns out to have been unreliable, then I’ll need to find myself another one.” His cheeks flushed. “If there’s one thing I can’t abide, it’s being made a fool of.”
“I should hardly think it would make you a fool. Misled, perhaps, and thirty pounds the poorer, but not everyone knows what to look for.”
He seemed little consoled.
Miss Templeton had wandered from us, and now she called from the far corner of the glasshouse. “You must come look at this!”
Mr. Stansbury cocked a brow at me and nodded in that direction. We found her with my uncle. “Look at this palm. Can you believe it? It’s growing flat, just like a fan!”
“It’s not a palm.” Again Mr. Stansbury and I spoke the words together. As I began to laugh, he joined me.
The Admiral glowered at us and then spoke to Miss Templeton, whose face had turned quite red. “A common mistake. It certainly looks like a palm.”
She hardly seemed mollified. “It’s not polite to laugh at a girl, just because she doesn’t know a palm from a . . . whatever it is. And it is quite something.”
Mr. Stansbury nodd
ed. “I agree.” He turned on me. “Shame on you, Miss Withersby.”
“I hardly think . . .” I let my words die, when I perceived that he was joking.
He bent toward Miss Templeton. “Have you ever seen a palm with a beard?”
“A beard? Don’t tease, Mr. Stansbury.”
“Let me show it to you.” With a wink at me, he led her off through the palms, leaving me with the Admiral.
Several minutes later, her voice floated toward me over the squawking of the parrots. “Oh! Miss Withersby! You must come and see this. It has the beard of an old man.”
“Must be a Coccothrinax crinita.” The Admiral mumbled the words as he strode toward them, hands clasped behind his back.
“How . . . how do you know about that palm?”
“Any fool who’s put in to Havana has seen one. Can’t say I’ve ever gotten used to the sight of it though.”
I hurried up the path behind him, wondering that he, who had forsaken botany for boats, would have known a thing like that.
We spent some time admiring a grouping of ribbon ferns and a display of maidenhairs, and then Miss Templeton put a hand to her bosom and sighed. “Thank you ever so much for your kindness, Mr. Stansbury. Your collections are magnificent.”
He bowed.
“I so hate to leave, but we must be off. Mustn’t we, Miss Withersby?”
“But we haven’t yet seen the—”
“Perhaps we will be honored with an invitation to visit some other time.” She was looking at Mr. Stansbury quite hopefully.
“Yes! Please do come back. Any time you’d like.”
Why was she so determined to leave? “I don’t see why we can’t stay here for just—”
“We’re expected elsewhere.” Miss Templeton whispered the words through her smile.
We were?
She grabbed my arm and turned me round and then pulled me right down the path. “The rector!” She whispered the words into my ear.
Like a Flower in Bloom Page 9
