Elizabeth and Zenobia

by Jessica Miller

  ‘Yes,’ I said in a dazed way. ‘I feel I know you, too.’

  ‘Your face’—she narrowed her eyes and with half a smile dancing on her lips, looked close at me—‘your face is so familiar.’

  ‘Sit down, won’t you, Elizabeth?’ said Father. ‘Mrs Purswell will be in soon, with the tea.’

  I sank into an armchair. Zenobia perched beside me wearing a thrilled expression.

  I felt like I was in a dream. Or maybe everything that came before now had been the dream? Had we really saved Tourmaline from the Plant Kingdom? Or had I just imagined it all? Father always said I had an overactive imagination.

  ‘What perfect nonsense,’ snorted Zenobia. ‘You know very well you’re not as imaginative as all that. It was entirely real.’

  ‘I know you must be right,’ I said. ‘And yet there’s no sign the Plant Kingdom was ever here. Everything is just as it was—almost as if none of it ever happened.’

  Zenobia sighed. ‘I know you’re not especially perceptive, Elizabeth, but surely even you can sense how the atmosphere in Witheringe House has shifted. Before, the house had a terribly gloomy, haunted feeling—a most appealing feeling, if you ask me. Now,’ she wrinkled her nose in distaste, ‘it’s light, and bright, and’—she flinched—‘happy.’

  I looked around. The house was somehow brighter. Like all the shadows and sadness that had filled it had been lifted away.

  Father was brighter, too. His eyes shone when he looked at Tourmaline.

  ‘Your Aunt Tourmaline,’ he was saying now, ‘has been away for a long time.’

  ‘Your aunt is a famous entomologist,’ Miss Clemency said. ‘Her work is a little like your father’s, only she studies insects rather than plants.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Father, ‘Tourmaline’s been away since before you were born. Travelling, as it turns out, in the jungles of Borneo, Peru—all kinds of places.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said lightly, ‘it was like being in another world.’

  ‘I suppose you saw lots of interesting plants,’ I said.

  ‘The strangest plants you could ever imagine! Even if I could describe them to you, I’m not sure you’d believe they were real.’

  ‘I think I would,’ I said.

  She laughed and leaned close to me. ‘But may I confess something, Elizabeth? I’ve never really cared for plants. They’re so green, so creeping.’ She shuddered. ‘I much prefer insects.’

  ‘And I must say,’ said Miss Clemency, ‘your Aunt Tourmaline has brought back some quite fascinating specimens!’

  Laid out on a low polished table were butterflies and moths behind glass, and beetles with jewelcoloured carapaces, along with sketches of hairy spiders and pincered ants and other creatures I recognised as insects but whose names I didn’t know.

  The door creaked open, and Mrs Purswell came in carrying a tea tray. Tourmaline sprang up. ‘That looks awfully heavy, Mrs Purswell. Let me help.’ She took a pile of saucers and set one for each of us. ‘One,’ she said, ‘two, three, and four.’ She placed a pink porcelain saucer before me with a flourish. But she still held one in her hand. She frowned at it. ‘There’s one too many,’ she said.

  Father cleared his throat. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘there’s just enough. I think you’ll find that one is for Zenobia. She usually sits beside Elizabeth.’

  I stared at Father, open-mouthed. He looked down at the plate of biscuits in his hands, then he looked up at me again.

  ‘Yes,’ he said gruffly. ‘Well, Miss Clemency and I—that is, Adelaide and I—have spoken on the matter, and Adelaide has brought me to see that Zenobia is… Zenobia is a good friend to you, Elizabeth. And that I haven’t been as welcoming towards her as I could be. I shall try to do better, if she’ll let me.’

  ‘I appreciate it,’ I told him warmly. ‘We appreciate it.’

  I turned, with a smile to Zenobia. But she was absorbed in one of Tourmaline’s specimens: a black beetle with long spindled claws and antennae. ‘Look at this,’ she turned over the card it was pinned to. ‘An Algerian Death Beetle. Did you ever see such fierce pincers,’ she breathed, ‘such black beady eyes? It’s quite the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen. Entomology has always struck me as a fascinating subject. I wonder I haven’t made a study of it before.’

  ‘Zenobia,’ said Tourmaline thoughtfully. ‘It’s not a common name, is it?’

  ‘Rather uncommon, actually,’ said Miss Clemency, and she gave me a twinkling smile.

  ‘And yet,’ said Tourmaline, ‘I feel as if I’ve heard it somewhere before.’

  She looked directly at Zenobia as she placed the teacup before her. It was almost as if she could see Zenobia was there.

  Zenobia was too busy admiring the beetle to notice, but I flashed Tourmaline a shy smile and she smiled broadly back.

  Then, she turned back to the insects on the table. ‘Of course, all I’ve done all these years,’ she said, ‘is collect specimens. I haven’t been as industrious as you, Henry. Look at all these books you’ve written!’

  A stack of Father’s books sat by Tourmaline’s chair. She began, one by one, to pick them up and leaf through them.

  ‘Musings on Myrophilium by Dr Henry Murmur.’ She flipped the blue-bound book over in her hands. ‘The Complete Wildflower Encyclopaedia: Asphodel–Zinnia by Dr Henry Murmur,’ she said, as she picked up another.

  The next book she took from the pile had an earthy-brown cover. Its title was etched in green letters. ‘The Plant Kingdom by Dr Henry Murmur,’ she said. ‘Your very first book, wasn’t it, Henry?’

  Father nodded. Tourmaline placed the book on the table and lifted the next one from the pile.

  I reached for The Plant Kingdom and opened it. I was searching for a sign—perhaps a sentence in looping green letters—to show that the Plant Kingdom had been real.

  I flipped through the book.

  All I saw were lines of black type, and dense illustrations of nettles and dandelions.

  Disappointed, I let the book drop into my lap. It fell open at the very first page. The dedication.

  I read it once.

  I sat up straight.

  I read it again.

  ‘Father?’

  Father and Miss Clemency and Tourmaline were all exclaiming over the bright blue colour of a scarab beetle, but Father set the beetle down when I said his name.

  ‘Yes, Elizabeth?’

  ‘The dedication, at the start of The Plant Kingdom,’ I said. ‘Was it always there?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘And is it—is it true?’

  ‘Of course it’s true,’ he said, and under his stern moustache, his mouth turned up in a small smile. ‘Of course it is.’

  He turned back to Tourmaline, who was holding the scarab up to the light, and to Miss Clemency, who was leaning in to admire the vivid colours across the beetle’s thorax. Beside me, Zenobia was still entranced by the Algerian Death Beetle.

  I watched them a while and then I went back to the book in my lap. Zenobia was right. Not everything was just as it had been, after all. I traced my finger over the words on the page as I read the dedication a third time:

  To my daughter Elizabeth, whom I love

  more than anything in the world.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to all at Text, above all to Jane, who shaped this story so deftly, and with special thanks to Imogen, whose design brought it to life; to early and attentive readers, Poppy, Zoe and Robyn; to the Miller and Brereton families; to friends in Australia and Germany and elsewhere; and, of course, to Tim.

 

 

 
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