Miss Goodhue Lives for a Night (11 page)

Dear Margaret—

Do you recall in my last letter I told you of a visiting lecturer coming to Greenwich? It was a Sir Kingsley, who spoke very eloquently on botany. I was so certain that you and he would be of like minds, I took the liberty of telling him about your latest experiment. He was so astounded by the progress you have made in hybridizing your rose that he said you should come to London and present it to them—did I mention Sir
K——— is a member of the Horticultural Society of London?

Please don't be angry with me or think I violated a confidence. I know you prefer your greenhouse in Lincolnshire. But if you are so inclined to come to London, Margaret . . . know I will do everything in my power to make the trip worthwhile.

At the age of twenty, Miss Margaret Babcock had discovered a few fundamental truths about herself.

She knew herself to be overly tall.

She knew she was most at home in her greenhouse.

She knew she was—as her mother had once termed it—a bit of a late bloomer.

When her mother had first said it, it made no sense to Margaret. She wasn't a cherry tree that exploded in white and pink in the spring. She didn't sprout or flower. She was a girl. A tall girl, true. She grew, would continue to do so until she stopped, and then be an adult.

But then, she started to notice something odd. Yes, she kept growing up, up, up . . . but some of the other girls in town were growing
out
. Becoming rounded like petals and their skin turning white and pink in patterns that seemed to force attention from the young men toward them. They would slide their gaze to the side like they knew something Margaret didn't, laughing lightly at a joke Margaret couldn't understand.

And Margaret just kept getting taller.

It was only when she was sixteen or so that the upward trend slowed. And she waited patiently for the outward trend to begin. And waited. And waited.

“Like I said, you're just a late bloomer,” her mother had said then, as they repotted a ficus. “You'll catch up.”

“But I'm already taller than everyone! Shouldn't they be catching up to me?”

“Margaret,” her mother said, smiling. “Children aren't simply smaller versions of adults. Growing up requires change, not just expansion. You'll catch up to the others in your own time—but you don't have to be in such a rush. I like you very much just as you are.”

As impatient as Margaret was, she knew her mother was right. She tended to be. So she went back to humming and planting and wondering when her mind and body and everything would change, and she would be let in on the secret that all the other girls seemed to know.

And change did come. But not how anyone had pictured it. Because that winter, Margaret's mother fell ill. And the chill just wouldn't leave her.

They buried her mother in the spring, in the family plot in the back corner of the garden. Margaret planted roses beside her headstone. It was the only time she had ever seen her father cry. And suddenly, Margaret didn't want anything to change anymore.

She stayed in her greenhouse. She worked with her plants. Making things grow was what she and her mother always did.

It was strange, but watching her fruit trees and violets and roses move through their seasons was a kind of consistency. It was a pattern that could be predicted. And controlled.

But even with her head down, she noticed that as much as she wanted things to stay the same, everything around her was changing. First, her father decided to remarry and brought Leticia Churzy into their lives. She was a countess, and very beautiful, and she made Margaret realize that her old skirts had become too short and that just because she blushed when she thought of certain members of the opposite sex, it didn't mean she was meant to marry them.

Just like Leticia was not meant to marry Margaret's father, as it turned out.

And then, Dr. Rhys Gray came to stay with the Babcocks at Bluestone Manor for a few weeks.

A friend of Mr. Turner's, the local miller, he'd come for a visit and ended up tending to Margaret's father's gout-riddled foot.

And Margaret discovered what it was like to have a friend.

Oh, she'd become friends with Leticia—eventually—and Miss Goodhue, the schoolteacher in Helmsley, who for some unknown reason seemed happy for Margaret's companionship, but with Rhys, Margaret learned what it was to build a friendship out of shared interests and mutual understanding.

Every time she received a letter from him, her heart leapt a little as she broke the wax “G” that sealed the pages, a thrill of “yes!” running through her veins.

So when the butler brought Rhys's latest letter into the greenhouse, that same joy lifted the corners of her mouth as she used a relatively clean garden spade to break the seal.

She stared at the letter in her hands, reading it for the seventh time in as many minutes. Then she folded it up and tossed it on her workbench.

Then she snatched it up again and reread it once more, her eyes flitting to certain phrases automatically, confirming for the eighth time that they were, indeed, real.

. . . your latest experiment . . .

. . . Horticultural Society . . .

. . . come to London, Margaret . . .

“Margaret, here you are, we've been waiting for you for—
achoo!
—for tea,” Leticia Churzy—now Leticia Turner—said as she poked her head around the greenhouse door.

Margaret hurriedly put the letter in the pocket of her apron.

“I'll be there in a few minutes, Leticia,” she said, turning her attention back to little vines she had been potting into individual containers. “I just need to finish this.”

“Well, of course your . . . green peas?—they simply cannot wait,” Leticia said with a slightly sardonic smile.

“No, they cannot,” Margaret retorted. Rare was the person who understood that while plants seemed unmoving and patient, in truth timing was everything. Leticia, for all her good qualities, was not one of those people. “I'm testing a new formula for my fertilizer—there's a different amount of fish guts in the soil of each of these pots. If I plant them all at different times, it adds another variable to the experiment and ruins everything.”

Leticia turned visibly green at the mention of fish guts, but still came forward. “Well, you're almost done. I can keep you company while you . . . fertilize.”

Margaret's mouth tipped up at the corners. “And you can make sure I don't lose track of time and make it in time for tea, correct?”

“I admit to having ulterior motives. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy your—
achoo!
—company.” She gulped again. “Oh heavens, that smells.”

“You must, if you're willing to brave your sensitivity to flowers to be in here,” Margaret replied, smiling.

It was so strange. A year ago, when Margaret first met Leticia, it had been in this very greenhouse, and it had been rather dramatically different. Margaret had been deeply angry to find
anyone
in her greenhouse, let alone someone professing to be her soon-to-be stepmother.

It was the first time she was forced to realize that the world had gone on turning since her mother's death. That it had continued to turn for her father, Sir Barty. She had been an angry, lost girl, who lashed out with her tongue and her recalcitrant nature.

Over those weeks that Leticia had been engaged to Sir Barty, Margaret had been convinced that Leticia was changing not only everything at Bluestone, but that she was actively trying to change Margaret. Her too-short dresses were out-of-date—made for girls in their youth, and not a young woman. That she should present herself for dinner with the family. That she should take tea with the ladies in the town. That she should be a
part
of things—and it was a notion that made Margaret distinctly uncomfortable.

It wasn't until Leticia had a pair of trousers made for Margaret to work in—the trousers she was currently wearing—that Margaret realized she wasn't trying to change her. Not in fundamentals. Just that Leticia had been trying to find her way to friendship with Margaret. To understand each other.

They became much better friends after that. Margaret could almost be sad that Leticia had not ended up her stepmother. Almost. But seeing how happy she was as the wife of Mr. Turner, the owner of the local mill, and that her father had found a happy companion in Helen, Mr. Turner's widowed mother, Margaret felt that everything was as it should be.

Except . . .

When the five of them sat down to dinner—Leticia and Mr. Turner were often guests—it was cozy and happy, but Margaret couldn't help feeling like there was still a chair empty, next to hers.

She wondered whom it was that was meant to fill it. For a time she thought it was her mother, but now . . . she wondered if it was something else.

Maybe it wasn't that there was a chair empty, but instead that the table was too full. Maybe, she thought, there was somewhere else she was supposed to be.

Absentmindedly, she reached inside her pocket, and felt for the paper—that didn't seem to be there.

“What's this?” Leticia asked, stooping to pick up the folded letter down by Margaret's feet. Drat it all, in her rush to hide the letter, she must have missed her pocket.

“Nothing,” Margaret said quickly, reaching for it. Leticia, to her credit, handed it over immediately. “Just a letter.”

“Forgive me, but did I recognize Dr. Gray's handwriting? He often corresponds with my dear John, you know.”

Caught, Margaret couldn't lie. Not that she hadn't tried in the past, but she was terrible at it. She never knew where to look, and she would blush like mad, giving herself away. “Yes, it's from Dr. Gray.”

Leticia's look became concerned. “Is it your father's gout again? Helen says she's encouraged him to stay away from rich sauces but Mrs. Dillon says Cook has caught him more than once in the larder.”

“No, it has nothing to do with Father,” Margaret answered. And seeing Leticia's completely not-interested look of interest, she knew she had to explain. “We've been corresponding.”

“Corresponding?” Leticia's eyebrow went up to the ceiling. “You've been corresponding with a man?”

“No . . . not like that. It's an academic correspondence.” Oh blast, she was blushing. At one point in time she thought that if a man made her blush, it meant they were meant to be together forever. But now, she knew it to be an inconclusive theory, because almost
any
awkwardness made her blush. And explaining her letters with Rhys was definitely awkward.

“Academic?” Leticia repeated. “He asks about your work, and such?”

“Yes,” she replied. “He sent me a pamphlet on African scrub bushes once that inspired me to have the arid greenhouse built. And . . .”

Leticia blinked, waiting. “And . . .”

“And . . . well, I don't know what to do, because . . .” Margaret bit her lip, and then made a decision. “Read this, please.” She held out the letter.

Leticia gingerly took the paper from her. She unfolded it, and kept her expression stoically neutral as she read.

It was a short missive, from Rhys. Sometimes, he could fill up both sides of the page with cross writing if he had a particularly interesting experiment he wished to explain. But Leticia was done reading before Margaret could so much as plant another pea pod.

“Well, this is something, isn't it?” Leticia said, smiling. “What a marvelous opportunity.”

“Is it?”

“To go to London, of course. And show the Horticultural Society your . . . flowers.”

“It's not just flowers, Leticia,” Margaret replied impatiently. “They are hybridized reblooming roses! And there's no way I can take them to London.”

She flung her hand out toward the small, meticulously cultivated rose plant that sat in its pot on the stand near the north-facing windows. Its blooms were delicate and white, and it was perhaps the most important plant in the entire greenhouse.

It was her mother's China rose. Her mother had been quite the rosarian, and when a cultivator brought seeds back from the Far East, her father had purchased them (at an alarming price, he was always sure to mention) for her mother's birthday several years ago.

Only one of the seeds took, and grew into the potted shrubbery that sat on Margaret's windowsill that day. The China rose was not hardy like their English and European varieties, but it bloomed continually through the summer months and into the fall. It had begun to flower just last month—pretty little white things with wide petals. But Margaret knew all those blooms came at a cost, and if she took the plant outside, for even a day, she risked it withering into nothing.

But she had great hopes for the children of the China rose.

They were planted in the earth right outside the north windows, where—as Margaret liked to think—the China rose could keep an eye on them. They had sprouted into tangled stems and thorns, and now, the newest set of flowers was beginning to bud. She'd mated the China rose to stockier English rose varieties. For the past three years, she'd tried—and failed—to produce a rose that would bloom and be able to live outside of a conservatory . . . but this year, she might have done it.

The light pink blossoms on the bramble didn't look like much, not yet. But they had survived a late frost last month. And they had more and more buds sprouting every day.

A rose that bloomed all summer long. And could survive outside in the English climate.

She shouldn't be surprised that the Horticultural Society was interested. But to ask her to come to London . . .

“Why can you not take them to London?” Leticia asked cautiously. “It seems Dr. Gray thinks it quite the accomplishment.”