The Other Harlow Girl

by Lynn Messina

  “I see,” said the Marquess of Huntly stiffly.

  She smothered a smile and nodded soberly. “Yes, I think you do.”

  An awkward silence followed this exchange, and Vinnie waited for the marquess to make the next move, which he did by announcing his departure.

  Vinnie turned her lips down in regret. “That is a shame, my lord, for Mr. Knoll was just about to retrieve one of your other dispatches for me to read, as I understand there are several. It’s so disappointing that you won’t be here so I can compliment you in person on your unexceptional text.”

  “You are too kind, Miss Harlow,” he said, managing a smile that seemed both grateful and sincere. “But I’m sure you’ve complimented me enough.”

  It was to his credit that his mask of good humor stayed firmly in place—Vinnie could readily acknowledge that—but it annoyed her nonetheless that he didn’t show even the merest slip of temper. It demonstrated again, she felt, how highly he regarded himself and how little he regarded her.

  “I know!” she said, as if struck by the best of good ideas. “I shall record my thoughts in an epistle and forward them to you at your residence. That way, you can read them at your leisure.”

  Huntly tried to demur by insisting he could not put her out to such an extent, but she assured him it was no effort at all—“Indeed, a mere trifle really, like the articles themselves”—and in the end he agreed to read them at the earliest opportunity.

  Vinnie did not doubt that the opportunity, early or late, would never arrive, and she could hardly blame him, for her faint praise had been harsh indeed. With this happy thought in mind, she bid him good day and watched him leave the shop without purchasing a book or a newspaper. Whatever he had come to purchase during his visit had clearly been forgotten in his pique over their exchange.

  In keeping with her word, Vinnie remained at Hatchard’s for another hour, fulfilling her promise to provide him with admiring notes. These compliments were in the same vein as the others, though in truth she was much impressed with his writing style, which was elegant, concise and evocative. As she read, she found herself envying not only the remarkable experiences he’d had but the freedom that let him have them. The unexpected longing for freedom was a new sensation for Vinnie, who had never chafed at the confines of her life. Her sister chafed. Emma frequently railed against the firm strictures that dictated what a woman could or couldn’t do, and some of her worst scrapes were merely attempts to free herself from what seemed to her an unfair set of rules.

  But Vinnie didn’t mind rules and indeed saw those same firm strictures as boundaries no more interesting and no less banal than, say, the walls of a room. One did not complain that the walls of the drawing room were too straight or too tall. Rather, one was grateful that they held up the room with such success that one’s head stayed dry and one’s bedroom above had a floor.

  In this, as in all things, Vinnie was practical.

  Or so she had thought before reading about Huntly’s discovery of a small purple-and-yellow orchid with a fluted labellum and furled ribbonlike petals that was attached to the underside of a west-facing branch of a towering tree on an uninhabited island. In awe of its beauty, Huntly had dubbed the flower Venustas sublimis—sublime beauty—and just like that, a blossom never before seen by British eyes and rarely seen by human ones had a name.

  This act of nomenclature seemed to her at once extraordinarily mundane and astonishingly fantastical, for what was more human than giving an unknown entity a name and what was more godlike than bestowing an identity upon a thing of creation. The boldness of it took her breath away.

  As she was recording her thoughts on the marquess’s article on Lonicera serrata (“Wonderfully vague description generously gives the reader an opportunity to create her own flower”), Mr. Knoll came over to the table to see if she required anything else, and it was only his presence that recalled to her the time. She had been there for more than two hours, and her poor maid Lucy was no doubt quite tired of the hard bench outside by now.

  With a grateful smile, Vinnie told him she had everything she needed and would in fact be taking her leave of him as soon as she reassured herself that his wrist was not damaged from their earlier encounter. Mr. Knoll displayed several angles of movement without flinching and, convinced of his continued good health, Vinnie collected her things.

  She was satisfied with that morning’s work. No, it had not gone exactly as she’d intended and, yes, it contained more than one embarrassing episode, but she did not regret the impulse that had brought her there. She’d come because she was curious about the marquess’s travels, and now that her curiosity had been appeased she would not think of the man any longer. He was a dear friend of her brother-in-law and she would no doubt stumble upon him a time or two in the conservatory or at the dining table, but she would pay him little heed, perhaps deigning only to inquire after his health to demonstrate that she, too, could behave with the utmost propriety.

  She would be courteous and correct and comply with all the requirements of polite society, but she would not think about the Marquess of Huntly one single moment more. She simply would not.

  Chapter Five

  Although there were several dozen issues requiring the Marquess of Huntly’s immediate attention, including some items that had been waiting for two years, he directed his curricle to the British Horticultural Society. His plan for the day had been simple: Following a brief visit to Hatchard’s to purchase a replacement copy of Dante’s Inferno, the original of which was destroyed in a typhoon (perhaps reading about hell was not the best way to handle a violent and unwieldy storm), return home to Berkeley Square to meet with the land agent. After his appointment with Mr. Branch, he had engagements with his banker and auditor and intended to review the accounts for the London house as well as those for the family seat in Devon and his various other properties.

  Administering to the vast Dryden estates, a worthy and time-consuming effort, to be sure, comprised only half of his list of things to be done, for he had spent the whole of his journey taking copious notes and now required a well-ordered individual with a knowledge of botany to help him organize his material for publication. Once all the information was arranged in a logical and efficient system, he would hire artists to create watercolors from his drawings and engravers to make copperplate line engravings. The book he was to write, a vast compendium of all the strange and wonderful flora he had seen, would no doubt take him years to complete. Like a traveler who discovers forgotten mementos at the bottom of his luggage, he could no longer recall all of the items he had collected and was eager to refresh his memory.

  As impatient as he was to begin, he could not forestall a visit to the horticultural society. Even as he swore he would not go, he turned his horses into Jermyn Street.

  Mr. Berry, the energetic man of mild affability who neatly handled the organization’s affairs so its members would not have to, greeted the marquess warmly and with great surprise, for he hardly expected the famous naturalist to call so soon after his return. “It is a great honor, my lord, a truly great honor. Please, do sit down and join me for a spot of tea. I’ve just made a fresh pot. Only if you have time, of course. Do not fear that I will pester you with hundreds of questions about your trip. I do have a list, of course, based on our correspondence, but I will wait for the lecture you are sure to give our worthy members.”

  The marquess hadn’t factored in tea when deciding to stop at the society, and he resented the time it would take from his overly stuffed schedule. In the interest of fairness, however, he had to concede that he hadn’t factored in anything at all in the decision, for the visit had been a whim he’d found impossible to resist, and a lengthy diversion was just what he deserved for acting so rashly.

  “I’d be delighted,” he said, removing his hat. The horticultural society’s quarters were comfortable and airy, with bright patches of color supplied by pink bougainvillea and purple clementis and red roses, and as he sat down in
the tall wingback chair to the left of Berry’s desk, he felt surprisingly calm and unhurried. As a longtime member of the society, he’d spent many hours in the large room and in a lot of ways, it felt like home.

  “To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?” Mr. Berry asked as he handed the marquess a teacup with the society’s thistle insignia. “Were you interested in something in particular or simply unable to stay away?”

  “A little bit of both,” the marquess said truthfully, though he was reluctant to divulge the entire reason, for he knew Miss Lavinia Harlow was making a joke at his expense. During the two years he was away, the word botanicalesque had not become common parlance in the society’s bimonthly publication. Indeed, he rather doubted the word existed at all. Miss Harlow had already shown an alarming tendency to either tell outright lies or to garble the truth so completely that nothing made sense, as she had done with the staff at Trent’s town house. As far as he could tell, all the familiar faces remained and none of the new ones had the name mentioned by Miss Harlow. He did not know what motivated the woman, nor did he want to know, and yet he couldn’t simply let the matter rest. For some reason, he was compelled to confirm it by examining recent issues and seeing for himself.

  The plan was untenable, of course, for he had far too many people waiting on him to spend several hours poring over two years’ worth of journals for a word he knew wasn’t in them. He’d come on a fool’s errand, and feeling like a fool, he looked the editor of The Journal of the British Horticulture Society in the eye and asked him outright if he was familiar with the term botanicalesque.

  Mr. Berry rubbed his chin thoughtfully and pursed his lips as if in deep consideration. “I don’t think so, though to be completely candid I’m not as familiar with all the new terms as I should be. Perhaps it’s of recent coinage. May I ask why you enquire, my lord? Is this a term we should incorporate in our discussions? Is the Society for the Advancement of Horticultural Knowledge using it?” he asked, unable to suppress his horror at the thought of the members of the rival society knowing something his did not. It was not part of Mr. Berry’s responsibilities to nurse old wounds or to foster new enmity, and he did both of these entirely on his own as a voluntarily contribution.

  Although more than twenty years had passed since the Society for the Advancement of Horticultural Knowledge was formed by discontents fleeing the British Horticultural Society, many current members of the BHS still saw it as a mutinous faction. Tensions between two different schools of botanical thought—knowledge for knowledge’s sake on one side and knowledge for the advancement of human society on the other—had been growing for years, and the split finally came when Sir Walter Campbell advocated for a plaster made of cow dung, lime, wood ashes and sand to be applied to wounded trees as a restorative measure. A report commissioned by parliament concluded that the unpleasant concoction had no effect on the trees at all, neither good nor ill, but Campbell remained passionately committed to his invention regardless of its usefulness, and unable to save the majestic oaks in the royal forest, he decided to save himself by forming his own organization.

  “You may remain calm, Mr. Berry,” Huntly said with all due sobriety, though, in fact, he found the rivalry between the two societies to be endlessly amusing. “As far as I know, the Society for the Advancement of Horticultural Knowledge does not have an lexiconical advantage over us.”

  Mr. Berry exhaled loudly in relief. “Thank goodness for that, my lord. From whence, then, does this word come? And what does it mean exactly?”

  If Huntly had considered the sort of conversation engendered by his question, he would no doubt have preferred taking the time to do the painstaking research himself. But he hadn’t thought that far ahead, and reluctant now to dignify Miss Lavinia Harlow’s absurdity with any more of his attention, he asked the clerk what advancements the other society had made in his absence.

  As expected, this question successfully diverted Mr. Berry, and for several minutes straight he assured the marquess that the Society for the Advancement of Horticultural Knowledge had so far from advanced anything that it had actually—gasp of horror!—regressed. “They are recommending that one no longer rotate one’s crops, for fear of letting valuable farmland grow fallow, if you can believe it, sir, and there’s no reason you should not!”

  While Mr. Berry railed against the folly of sunken gardens (not since the Middle Ages!), Huntly contemplated how to extricate himself from the situation he’d created. But no, he thought, this circumstance was not of his doing; ’twas Miss Harlow who was to blame, with her sugarcoated insults and her backhanded compliments. He had been unable to tell during the entire conversation if she was giving her truthful opinion about his work or offering intentional slights. Her manner had been everything that was honest and sincere as she blinked at him with wide-eyed innocence, her admiring tone at once genuine and abashed.

  He knew now, of course, what her true purpose had been in offering these so-called compliments and calling his work botanicalesque—she was being deliberately insulting—and the Marquess of Huntly, whose person had never before been the target of deliberate insults, couldn’t imagine what he had done to offend her. His behavior from the moment she had doused him with her ridiculous exploding hose had been nothing but circumspect: He greeted her politely when introduced by the duke, he made no mention of the incident, he smiled when she introduced a comment into the conversation, and he tipped his hat to her upon taking his leave. He had behaved exactly in the way a man of his breeding, station and taste was supposed to, and she, intemperate female that she was, had behaved like a veritable cracked pot.

  And now, because of her, he was stuck listening to Mr. Berry air old grievances rather than attending to his estate, which required his attention far more than the garrulous clerk, and he resented the fact that he resented the fact that he was there.

  It was an absolute muddle from top to bottom, and knowing that he was ultimately responsible for it made him even more angry with Miss Harlow.

  “Understand, of course, that I’m not advocating for additional members,” Mr. Berry continued, “for I know very well that it’s quality that matters rather than quantity, but I cannot ignore the fact that the rebel society now has more members than we do.”

  At this information, Huntly’s head tipped up sharply and a light entered his eyes as an idea occurred to him—a perfectly horrible, wonderful, wretched idea. It was not the sort of idea that befitted a man of his breeding, station or taste, but acting in accordance of all three had wound him up there and he was annoyed enough not to care. He would deal with Miss Harlow in exactly the same way she had dealt with him: by offering an insult wrapped in the fine paper of a compliment.

  “You are right, Mr. Berry, we must be judicious in whom we stand as members,” Huntly said agreeably, “for we have a proud lineage and cannot corrupt it by stuffing the ballot box, as they say. But new blood is always good for the stock.”

  “Very good,” said Mr. Berry, happy that his idea had found favor with the marquess. “I shall put the matter on the agenda for the society’s next meeting. The imbalance is not huge and horticulture, of course, is not a matter of numbers but of feeling. Still, I can’t help but feel a few new members would serve us well.”

  “As I said, I agree entirely and would like to propose a new member myself,” Huntly said.

  Mr. Berry picked up a quill and took a fresh white sheet of parchment out of his desk. “I would be honored to record it. Please proceed.”

  “Miss Lavinia Harlow,” Huntly said firmly.

  The clerk nodded and scrawled miss with confidence as well as the first three letters of Harlow before the words he was writing penetrated his consciousness. Then he paused and looked up at Huntly with a furrowed brow, as if incapable of trusting his own ears. “Miss Lavinia Harlow, you say?”

  “Yes, Harlow with a W, not to be confused with Harlo without a W, which has a slightly forlorn look about it,” he said helpfully.

 
As much as Mr. Berry appreciated the marquess’s attempt to clear up his confusion, he didn’t find the effort particularly helpful, as the problem was not the spelling of the name, of which he was already quite familiar. “She—being a she—is female,” he said.

  “Astutely observed, my good man,” Huntly said with all seriousness, although his lips twitched with the desire to break out into a broad smile.

  “We do not have any provisions for females,” Mr. Berry said.

  Huntly knew that by the word provisions, the clerk intended to say that the society was not set up to accommodate female members, which was entirely true. The British Horticultural Society was a fair-minded institution that allowed ladies to participate in activities appropriate to their sex such as entering flowers in its annual show, but it in no way considered women worthy of membership to its exclusive club. The society was far too rigorous and serious for such a distinction, for it had been created to provide men of a certain botanical bent with an opportunity to share thoughts and ideas through discussions, lectures and published articles.

  The marquess knew what Mr. Berry meant, but he found it expedient to his purpose to deliberately misunderstand. “As always, you are correct. There are no provisions in the bylaws that bar the application and acceptance of females into the society.”

  At this statement, the efficient little man’s face turned white, then bright red, for he had committed the charter to memory during his first month of employment and knew that the marquess spoke the truth: There was nothing in the document that specifically addressed the issue of women. Far from being an oversight, this omission was an intentional acknowledgement that the notion of admitting females into the organization was so absurd as not to need addressing.