“Is this a good flower?” The oldest of the girls had come back cupping what looked to be some sort of bog orchid in her hand.
“It might be, but I can’t really see it very well. Why don’t you lay it down and we’ll have a look at it.”
She dropped it onto my lap.
I knelt and placed it on the ground before me, straightening out the stems and separating the leaves. “It does have some promise, but to be very certain, I would need to see its roots as well.”
“I can go get them.” She was nearly a dozen paces gone before I called her back.
“There’s no use digging them out now. The thing about specimens is that they need to be as close to perfect as possible. Do you see this?” I pointed out a place where the tiny stem had been bruised and bent. “There might have been something important here, but it would be hard to tell in this state, wouldn’t it?”
Several of the other children had gathered round as I was speaking.
“A botanist is always very careful to take up a plant, roots and all, without harming any of it.”
The girl’s chin was trembling.
“Do you think you can find another of these? Because I would be very interested in having one.” Or I would have been, had I still been illustrating my father’s volumes.
She nodded. “There were ever so many by the pond over there.” She pointed off behind her.
“A pond?” The rector’s brow rose. “Do be careful. Those can be very deep. Perhaps I should go with—”
But she was off before he could say anything else.
He looked at me with a worried frown. “Do you think it’s safe? Encouraging them to go digging near the water?”
“Around the meres? Just think of them as lakes in miniature. It’s really quite fascinating to see what’s grown up around them. The children will get used to them. You can’t ramble anywhere around Cheshire without almost falling into one.” My words didn’t seem to reassure him. “I was looking for specimens much rarer than those at their ages. If you teach them what to look for, you’d have a wonderfully complete collection in no time.”
“With more time to write my sermons, I daresay.” He smiled. “They’ve been at loose ends since Lavinia died.”
“I was too when my own mother died. My interest in botany is what got me through. And the fact that I needed to finish up her contracts.”
“Her contracts? How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
“That’s quite a burden.”
“We needed the income. To dedicate one’s life to science isn’t the most profitable of undertakings.”
“Much like the ministry, I suppose.”
I supposed it was. “My mother wrote children’s books to contribute to the family coffers. I write my own now, though they’re meant for an older reader.”
“You do very well with the children. Few people could handle so many at one time.”
“They’re a bit like plants in a glasshouse.”
His brow rose.
“The very number of them seems overwhelming until you put each in its place and determine to give it the things that it needs to thrive. After that, they practically care for themselves.”
“Erm . . . I suppose it is . . . rather . . . perhaps . . .”
The children returned to us in a group, trailing plants and carrying rocks and all manner of other things, which they proceeded to drop into my lap.
“Well . . . this is . . . What is this?” I pulled a brown, shriveled stem from the pile and held it up for inspection. It looked as if it might be a Pseudorchis albida. I hadn’t known there were any in the area. “Who found this one?”
“Me.”
“Which me is that?”
“Me, me.” One of the boys pushed his way forward to stand in front of the others.
“Where did you find this?”
“In a pasture over there.”
He had pointed out beyond us, and I turned to follow his gesture. “Do you think you could show me the location?”
One of the girls grabbed up my hand. “And then can I show you where I found mine?”
Another of the girls grabbed my other hand. “And I’ll show you where I found mine!”
“But what about me?” One of the smallest of them was stamping her foot right atop the pile of specimens.
The rector took her up in his arms, set her on his shoulder, and we started off for the pasture.
We had quite a good ramble while the Admiral drifted about in a boat and Miss Templeton played pat-a-cake with the younger children. At length, the rector declared the hour late and herded the children back down the lane in the direction of the rectory. The Admiral and I deposited Miss Templeton and her hampers at Dodsley Manor and turned toward home.
When we arrived, my uncle persuaded my father from his work and sat him in a chair in front of the fire. Father stretched his stockinged feet out toward the fireplace.
“Young man?” The Admiral was looking in Mr. Trimble’s direction.
“Sir?”
“You may join this war council as well.”
War council?
Mr. Trimble wasted no time in pulling up a chair.
I drew up a chair too, wondering if I might safely pester Mrs. Harvey for a biscuit. The scent wafting from the kitchen was unusually tantalizing, and despite the picnic, the outing had left me ravenous.
“Now then.” The Admiral was pacing in front of the hearth. “We must first address tactics.”
“Tactics?” Mr. Trimble exchanged a glance with my father.
“The way the battle is shaping up, it’s going to be between the rector and that industrialist, what’s-his-name.”
I supplied it. “Mr. Stansbury.” Now we appeared to be getting somewhere! And at just a little over a week since I had joined society. It had taken, perhaps, a bit longer than I had expected, but victory was now at hand.
Father raised a brow. “The rector?” He said it with a dubious sort of lift to his voice.
Now my father would call a halt to this nonsense, send Mr. Trimble off, and let me resume my work. All that was needed was an underscoring of the current situation. “The rector has grown quite fond of me, I believe.”
Father chewed on his mustache for a moment as the Admiral turned on his heel and started back by the hearth in the opposite direction. “I don’t think—I don’t believe I’ve ever met the industrialist fellow.”
Which ought to make his trepidation all the greater. “It’s said he’s the wealthiest man in the county. And if I marry him, I shouldn’t have to work another day in my life. Ever.” That should put the fear of God into him. “Miss Templeton seems to think both of them are quite taken with me.” Which is not to say that I agreed with her, but she had said so, and it would cause no little anxiety if they thought it was true.
“Which one do you favor?” my father asked the Admiral.
“I am always on the side of the Almighty. However, I must point out that He is not the most generous of paymasters. With the rector, however, she would have the added benefit of children.”
Or the added nuisance. “None of them even knows how to select a proper specimen!”
The Admiral sent me a keen-eyed look. “They’ve been left without a mother, adrift on the sea of life. You could teach them. And besides, I’ve heard he has a very interesting collection.”
“Of which he comprehends very little.”
He gave me a perplexed sort of glance that reminded me I was to pretend as if I was actually trying to find a husband. “But I suppose that too could be righted.”
My father was frowning. “Well . . . what of Mr. What Did You Call Him?”
“Stansbury.” Mr. Trimble and I both answered at the same moment.
The Admiral turned on his heel again and started back in the other direction. “He seems devoted to the study of botany.” He threw a glance at my father. “He has quite a fine glasshouse filled with orchids and palms and ferns.”
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bsp; “But he’s quite mad for something he insists upon calling a stumpery.” I couldn’t keep myself from saying it. I really couldn’t.
“A stumpery?” My father’s brow rose. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“It’s like a fernery, only it’s filled with stumps.”
“Stumps?”
“With the trunks buried so the roots twist about in the air. Or so he says.”
Father’s eyes widened. “It sounds . . . indecent. Surely his interests could be turned to something more traditional.”
I could not agree. “Not at present. On that point, he is quite firm.”
The Admiral started back again. “But there cannot be any fault found with his glasshouse collections. They’re the finest in the county. Some say the best in the realm.”
There, too, I had to object. “But it’s filled with specimens that appear to be quite badly mislabeled and poorly cited.”
Father turned in his chair to look at me. “Well, then he needs someone like you, Charlotte, to guide him.”
Mr. Trimble regarded me through those piercing blue eyes of his. “Who do you favor, Miss Withersby?”
“I . . . can’t really say.”
Father rose and came over to pat my hand. “You need more time.” He turned to address the Admiral. “She needs more time.”
The Admiral pshawed. “My vote goes for Stansbury, even if he is prone to fanciful ideas.”
Father frowned. “I’d rather decided I preferred the clergyman. He seems to be a decent sort.” My father stared at the toe of his stocking for a long moment and then looked up to Mr. Trimble. “What about you, young man? You’re closer to a marrying age than either of us. Who do you favor?”
“My vote is with Miss Withersby.”
With me?
“With Charlotte?”
Was that . . . was that a choice?
“She’ll be the one to live with the decision. As long as you don’t disapprove of either, I say leave her to make the choice. I don’t think there’s much to gain by making decisions on another’s behalf.”
I would have thanked him if I had any intention of marrying.
The Admiral grunted. “In my day, children were told what to do; they weren’t asked for their opinion.”
I’d had quite enough of the discussion. “I’m sure I’ll come to a decision very soon. In either case, once I marry, I plan to be very busy attending to the needs of my new household. I’ll probably never see any of you except on Sundays at church.”
The Admiral came over and leaned down to kiss me on the cheek. “Won’t be the same without you, but it’s all for the best.”
Best for whom? I walked toward the front hall. “I believe I will retire now.”
My father put out a hand as I passed. “Won’t you stay and have supper with us, Charlotte? Mr. Trimble’s gone and got us a new—”
I had tired of hearing of Mr. Trimble and his irritating habit of changing everything. “I don’t think so, no.”
I went upstairs quite perplexed. It seemed as if talk of an impending marriage hadn’t bothered anyone, except me, very much at all. Nothing was working as I had planned.
I determined to lie abed the next morning as Miss Templeton habitually did, until the hour of ten, but to my great frustration, I could only manage to stay prone until seven. When I could stand it no longer, I dressed and descended the stair for breakfast, hoping to sneak into the kitchen before Mrs. Harvey bestirred herself. From the sound of activity in the kitchen, however, it seemed I was too late. Now I would have to content myself with whatever it was she threw at me.
The idea that I would have to survive until the evening hours on a diet of stale bread and cold tea filled me with despair. Perhaps I could walk over to Dodsley Manor and cast myself upon Miss Templeton’s mercy. As I stood in the front hall contemplating doing just that, I heard Mr. Trimble conversing with someone in the parlor.
“And what is it you would say that you’re doing now?” he was asking.
“Now?” a female voice answered him. “Well . . . I’ve melted the wax to make a sheet, haven’t I? So now I have to add the color and then I’ll have to pour it into the mold, won’t I?”
“I wonder how I ought to write that up. . . .”
As I stood there listening, a young woman came out from the kitchen carrying a tea tray filled with delectably browned buns, a bowl of glossy hard-boiled eggs, and a steaming teapot. She could not have been any older than I. Her ginger-colored hair was caught up in the back with pins. Freckles mottled her high, flat cheeks and thin nose.
She dropped a curtsey.
Could it be hot tea she was carrying? She proceeded into the parlor and must have deposited it there, for when she returned, she was not carrying it. I followed her down the hall to the kitchen and looked inside. Mrs. Harvey was nowhere to be seen.
Returning to the front hall, I peeked round the corner and tried to catch Mr. Trimble’s eye.
At length, he spied me and promptly came to his feet. “Miss Withersby?”
I gestured him over.
He excused himself from his guest and stepped out into the hall to join me. “How may I be of assistance?”
I stepped closer to him so I could whisper.
He took a hasty step backward.
“Who is that woman?”
He turned and cast a glance toward the visitor. “Her name is Mrs. Gribble.”
“And what is she doing here?”
“She’s telling me how to make a wax flower.”
“Why?”
“So that I can write the book you promised to your publisher. Really, Miss Withersby, is that the reason you asked me to come out here? Because I’ve rather a lot of work to be accomplished and it’s already—”
“No, I’m sorry, it’s not.”
“It’s not what?”
“It’s not the only reason. What I really wanted to know was who is that girl? The one with the tea tray? And where is Mrs. Harvey?”
“That is Miss Hansford. I took the liberty of firing your Mrs. Harvey.”
“You . . . you fired her? Are you allowed to do that? She came with the house.”
“She wasn’t a box hedge or a window shutter. And her cooking was abominable! No one should have to suffer such food. It’s a wonder you and your father survived as long as you did.” He was glaring at me as if she were my fault. “And I would not say that’s to your credit. Most people eat genuine food at their meals.”
“But the leasing agent—”
“The leasing agent was quite accommodating when I told him that it was either Mrs. Harvey or you.”
He must have read incomprehension in my eyes. “I told him that if she did not go, then we would.”
I heard myself gasp. “But that . . . that was a lie! We never would have—”
“I would have. As much as I feel fortunate to be working with your father, I would not much longer have stood for that dreadful food.”
He didn’t have to be so adamant about it. “The new girl seems pleasant.”
“She ought to be. She’s being paid quite well.”
“But there’s no money to—”
“There was plenty of money after I realized the butcher was billing you for meat you never saw. Didn’t you wonder why you were always being served salt pork when you were billed every week for sausages and roasts and chops?”
“Well . . . no.” I hadn’t. “Are you saying that we paid for real meat? But . . . where did it all go?” And why had I never noticed?
“I expect they went to some friend of Mrs. Harvey’s.”
I felt my mouth drop open.
The bell sounded at the front door, and the girl in question came out from the kitchen, hurrying past us.
“She answers the door too?”
“She’d better if she wishes to keep her position. I’ve tired of doing it myself.”
She came back to us and dropped another curtsey. “A package for Miss Withersby.”
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nbsp; I took it from her, nodded to them both, and went to the study to find my father. “Did you know Mr. Trimble has fired Mrs. Harvey?”
“I was going to tell you last night, but you retired before I had the chance.” He was actually smiling. “I told you he was a fine young fellow.”
“You approve?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“You mean . . . I could have fired her months ago?”
“Of course you could have.”
“But . . . why didn’t you fire her?”
“I hadn’t noticed just how bad things had gotten.”
“But wouldn’t you have been upset if I had done it?”
“If you had done it, that would have been fine. I wouldn’t have wanted to though. That woman frightened me.”
She’d frightened me too. The question was, why hadn’t she frightened Mr. Trimble?
I took the package upstairs to my room and found it to be an eglantine-colored silk dress and other bits from the dressmaker. I took up a piece of lacey . . . something that had fallen to the floor. It looked as if it ought to be a cape, but it was too short to serve that purpose, and the sides ended in points. If it was too small to be a cape and too large to be a handkerchief, whatever could it be for? There must be some purpose for those pointed ends. They were meant to be tied around something. Perhaps on my head in place of my flowered fall? I made several attempts to secure it there, but it didn’t want to stay.
Holding it up, I tried to envision where else it might go. Around my waist?
I tried it, but it seemed rather awkward, and I hadn’t noticed any other women wearing lace tied about their waists.
The only place left was my neck, so I tied it on. The ends weren’t long enough to make into a bow, so I left it knotted and then looked at the effect in the mirror. It wasn’t what I would have thought of as stylish, but my taste in fashion appeared to be eccentric in the extreme.
Untying the lace, I left it on my dresser top and the dress spread upon my bed and went downstairs. I was able to get a cup of tea and two whole slices of bread from the kitchen and I didn’t even have to beg for them!
By the time the Admiral came that evening, I was ready and waiting for him. In order to avoid another vexing conversation with Mr. Trimble, I descended only when I heard my uncle’s carriage arrive. But I did feel the need to venture into the parlor to bid farewell to my father and urge him to retire earlier rather than later.
Like a Flower in Bloom Page 14
