The Botanist’s Daughter : A Novel (2018)

by Nunn, Kayte

  She had dressed Violeta as warmly as she was able and took her mistress’s heavy cloak for herself, pulling the hood up over her head until she was almost unrecognisable as a woman. It would keep her warm, and incognito as she travelled, but she also remembered helping Elizabeth sew money in there. She might find herself in need of it in the weeks to come.

  She stepped outside with the baby strapped to her by means of a thick band of cloth wound around and around her middle and shielded by the cloak. The landscape seemed to glow in the moonlight. The snow was falling lightly now, but she could see several sets of footsteps leading away from the estancia, on the path that led further into the mountains. She crossed herself, praying that the murderers would not return. Her only hope of escape was to head along the other path, the one that led to Santiago. To flee to Valparaiso and seek help from the Campbells would be a mistake; they were too connected in the town, and news of her presence would reach the ears of Mr Chegwidden without a doubt. Her only option was to travel to Santiago, where she hoped to find Mr Williamson.

  Daisy reached the stables and approached the quietest of all the horses, a chestnut mare, coaxing her into a bridle that she found hanging on the stable wall. She hefted a saddle awkwardly onto its back and then lashed the box and her bags to each side of it. Shuffling along to a hitching post, she hoisted herself up, careful not to disturb the baby nestled against her chest.

  The ride to Santiago was slow going. The horse picked her way along in the darkness and Daisy had to resist urging the mare on, trusting her good sense to get them there safely. She tensed at the slightest movement in the grasses beside her, gripping the reins so tightly that they bit into the soft skin on her palms. She barely noticed the pain. Mercifully, Violeta, cocooned in her makeshift papoose, slept, oblivious to her surroundings.

  As dawn began to light the sky, she came upon an inn where she could rest her horse and seek refuge for a few hours. Slowing the mare, she approached with caution. She dismounted, careful of the baby bundled around her waist, and untied the saddlebag and box, carrying them with her. Violeta, still strapped to her front, began to whimper. ‘Hush, little one. I will get you some food soon, hush now,’ she soothed. Daisy went inside and was thankful for her foresight in bringing Tomas’s bag of pesos with her. She handed a few notes over, enough for a room for a few hours, speaking only enough Spanish to make her needs known. She kept the baby concealed beneath her cloak and prayed that she would not cry out.

  Daisy reached the room and sat heavily on the thin mattress, working her frozen fingers until the feeling began to return to her hands. It sent sharp pains through her but she barely allowed herself to notice. As soon as she was able, she began to fumble with the cloth that bound the baby to her, eventually working it loose and holding the child in her arms. Violeta had begun to wail loudly now. Daisy opened one of the saddlebags and brought out a goatskin of milk. She dribbled a little on her fingers and let the baby suck. ‘I know, sweetheart, but it’s the best I can do,’ she said, rocking her back and forth. Violeta soon quietened as she got a taste of the milk.

  As the baby drank, Daisy lay down next to her, spent. Sleep dragged her into its dark embrace before she had a chance to relive even a moment of the horror of the previous hours.

  Chapter Forty-four

  CORNWALL, SUMMER 2017

  Ed drove Anna back to the pub, and they found a spot outside in the sunshine. The beer garden was crowded and their food took a while to arrive, but Ed didn’t seem to mind the delay. As they lingered over pints of Doom Bar, Anna felt herself relax, happy in his company. He made her laugh more than she had in years. She found herself noticing his smile and the way it crinkled the corners of his eyes. She became conscious of his legs, so close to hers under the table, his large, square hands as they clasped the beer glass and the way his hair flopped delightfully into his eyes despite his continued efforts to push it back. She didn’t want the afternoon to end, and despite his earlier words, Ed seemed in no hurry to make the drive back to London. It was only as the shadows began to lengthen that he noticed the time.

  ‘I really must get going,’ he said reluctantly.

  ‘Of course. And thank you again.’

  ‘No, I should thank you for letting me tag along. It’s been a breath of fresh air to get out of town. Not to mention getting to know you, Jenkins. You can be as spiky as a parodia magnifica, but when you open up you’re as beautiful as its flower.’

  ‘Don’t you try and sweet-talk me with botanica,’ she replied, grinning at him.

  They walked outside to the car park and Anna kicked self-consciously at the gravel, not knowing how to say goodbye to him. He surprised her by sweeping her into a bear hug and they remained entwined for some moments. Anna allowed herself to be caught up in the wonderfully comforting feeling of his arms around her.

  ‘Let me know how you get on tomorrow,’ he said, eventually releasing her and opening the car door. ‘And don’t go scaring the locals in those peacock trousers.’

  ‘I’ll be doing just that!’ Anna called out as he drove off, feeling as if a piece of herself had gone with him.

  She abandoned half-made plans to walk off her lunch and instead returned to her bedroom upstairs. It was a small room, with sloping ceilings and a tiny window that overlooked the village rooftops and offered a brief glimpse of the ocean. She flicked on the kettle and pulled out the diary from her bag. Marguerite’s journal. She had read more of it, learning of Marguerite’s life and details of Lily’s development, fascinated to be learning of the early life of her great-grandmother.

  It seemed that, after her initial arrival in Sydney, Marguerite only wrote entries every few years. In the part Anna was reading, Lily was five and about to start school. ‘’Tis good that she will learn her letters, for I have never been so glad as to have mine. I remember Miss Elizabeth—’

  Anna broke off in excitement. This was the first mention of Elizabeth, she was sure of it. But what was the connection between them? Anna had first thought that Elizabeth and Marguerite might be the same person, but that theory was now discredited. She looked down at the page again and read on. ‘I remember Miss Elizabeth teaching me on the long voyage to South America. I feared I should never see land again; we were tossed about like driftwood for so many days and nights. Having something to occupy my days was a blessing.’

  So, Marguerite and Elizabeth had travelled to Chile together. The mystery was unfolding like origami in reverse, each exposed crease revealing a new facet of the story.

  She read on. Marguerite kept circling back to the man she was scared of, wondering if he was still at large. There was a name, Anna could just make it out, it looked to be Damien Chegwibben, or possibly Chegwidden. The ink had faded in places and was hard to read.

  Anna couldn’t wait to speak to Miss Deverell in the morning. Surely she would be able to shed some light on who might have accompanied Elizabeth on that long voyage. She briefly wondered about calling Ed to tell him of this new development, but looked at her watch and reckoned he would still be on the road. It would have to wait.

  Anna kept reading, but there were no further references to Elizabeth, and her eyelids grew heavy, eventually fluttering shut as a sudden shower drummed on the roof, lulling her to sleep.

  She didn’t wake until early evening, when her stomach began to complain that it was time to eat again, so she braved the pub on her own, sitting at the bar and chatting to the publican who had showed them their rooms.

  ‘You’re from Australia, then?’ he said with a charming Cornish burr.

  ‘Correct,’ said Anna. ‘Just visiting.’

  ‘And how do you like it here?’

  ‘I like it very much,’ she replied. ‘Though I’ve barely had time to explore. We did go to Lady Luck Cove last night – what a pretty spot that is.’

  ‘Aye,’ he said, putting a pie and a plate of chips in front of her. ‘That’s a local favourite. Specially for courting couples.’

  Anna reddened as
she remembered the feeling of sitting so close to Ed as they watched the flames from the fire flicker and glow.

  ‘And we’ve been up to the house – Trebithick Hall.’

  ‘Trebithick Hall … My family used to work there, oh, many years ago now. My great-grandfather, James Banks, was the stablemaster and my great-grandmother the housekeeper, and then my grandfather thereafter. That were before the family went broke, of course. Then they dismissed all the servants and sold off a lot of the land.’

  ‘Did you ever hear stories of John Trebithick and his daughters – Georgiana and Elizabeth?’ asked Anna, her interest sparking at his connection to the house.

  ‘Happen I did. ’Twas quite the scandal when Miss Elizabeth went missing, and Miss Daisy too. I recall my grandfather telling me about it when I was a lad.’

  ‘Miss Daisy?’

  ‘She were the lady’s maid who travelled with Miss Elizabeth. What two young women were doing going off virtually on their own halfway around the world in the first place is anyone’s guess. Though times have clearly changed, of course,’ he added, indicating her.

  ‘Yes, I suppose they have,’ she agreed, her mind working furiously. ‘I don’t suppose you remember the surname of the lady’s maid?’ she asked, hopefully.

  He scratched his head, then shook it. ‘Nup. Haven’t the faintest, I’m afraid. Your best bet is to speak to Miss Deverell. She lives over Trevone way. She’s the last surviving member of the family.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Anna with a smile.

  The publican was called away to the other end of the bar to serve other customers, and so Anna finished her pie and drained her glass of Doom Bar – she’d become quite fond of the beer since Ed had introduced her to it.

  She wasn’t ready to return to her room, so she stepped outside into the soft evening light. A footpath that cut through the patchwork of green and golden fields towards the sea beckoned her. The rain had stopped, though the wild grasses that clogged the lane soon drenched her legs. She breathed in the cool evening air, which was scented with the sweet, soapy smell of Queen Anne’s lace and clover. As she climbed a stile dividing two fields, being careful to avoid the stinging nettles that swarmed around its base, she looked up to see a flock of swallows coming in to roost. Bells rang from the village church, a cascading harmony that sounded across the landscape. She followed the sound, venturing into the churchyard where ancient lichen-covered gravestones leant at angles, pushed off-kilter as the ground had settled over the years. She peered at the names, finally coming across the Trebithick family section. There was John Trebithick, buried next to his wife, ‘dearly beloved Augusta Rose’. A little further along were the graves of Georgiana and Robert Deverell, then George and Penelope, the surfaces of their much newer stones dark and shiny. A gust of wind blew through the churchyard, rustling the leaves on the horse chestnut and despite the warm evening, she shivered. There wasn’t a stone for Elizabeth. Anna imagined her buried perhaps on a Chilean hillside, thousands of kilometres away, but with the man she had loved. Anna lingered until the bells ceased and she heard the sound of chattering voices coming out of the church. Practice was over.

  She retraced her steps and turned in the direction of the sea. As she caught sight of its deep, fathomless blue, Anna felt a profound peace descend. She didn’t stop to question why it was that she felt such a strong connection to this place where she’d barely spent forty-eight hours. She didn’t resist what she would normally have dismissed as a fanciful notion. A notion of coming home.

  She clambered down the rocky path to the cove where she and Ed had picnicked the evening before. Now, as then, it was deserted. Anna pulled her hair, sticky from the salt and sweat of her walk, off her face and then yanked her T-shirt over her head. Shucking off her shoes and hurriedly unbuttoning her shorts before she changed her mind, she stripped naked. Taking a deep breath, she ran towards the water, plunging in up to her waist. She ducked under an incoming wave and came up gasping with the cold, but this time she didn’t return to shore. Determined, she kept on wading until the water reached her neck and she could only just touch the sandy bottom with the tips of her toes. The chill was exhilarating.

  Chapter Forty-five

  CORNWALL, SUMMER 2017

  Anna returned to her room, damp and sandy but refreshed from her freezing swim. After a warm shower, she settled back on the bed and picked up Marguerite’s diary. There were only a final few pages to be deciphered.

  ‘I cannot go to my grave without telling the truth, and so I must unburden myself here …’ Anna read slowly, stumbling over the fine copperplate. ‘Would that my mistress Elizabeth had not perished …’

  Ah. It was suddenly obvious. Marguerite was Daisy – Elizabeth’s maidservant. Of course. Anna did a mental face-palm. The truth had been hiding in plain sight: a marguerite was a type of daisy.

  ‘… for, were she breathing today, Lily would be with her mother as she should be.’

  Anna reeled in shock. Lily was Elizabeth’s daughter. The daughter that Florence had mentioned. She could scarcely believe it. Lily, Anna’s great-grandmother, Granny Gus’s mother … Anna felt a tingle of adrenalin run right to her toes. Did Marguerite ever tell Lily the truth about her parentage? She couldn’t have done, otherwise Granny Gus would have known about it, surely? There was also the fact of Augusta’s dimples; Anna knew from high-school biology that they were genetically inherited. But plenty of people had them; they were extremely common … both Gus and Anna’s nieces had them. She dropped the diary and picked up her phone, scrolling until she reached her mother’s number.

  No answer. She looked at the time. Three in the afternoon in Sydney.

  She tried another number. Again, no answer from her sister. Of course; school pick-up time.

  Anna considered calling Ed, but it was nearly midnight and she didn’t think it fair to disturb him. She lay on her back on the bed, her mind swirling with the possibilities that this new piece of information had thrown up. If this were true, then it meant that she was related to Florence Deverell. How would Florence take the news? Would she even believe it?

  The sun was casting bright shafts of light through the open curtains and Anna heard the grating sound of a delivery truck bouncing beer barrels down into the pub’s cellars. For a moment she lay there, listening to the soft warble of birds outside her window, feeling a sense of calm and certainty. She blinked as she remembered the diary, and felt for it on the bed.

  Two hours later, she sat at a table outside the front of the pub, enjoying the morning sun. She was waiting apprehensively for Florence’s car and started as the sound of a motor pierced the village quiet. There was a jaunty toot-toot and the old lady was waving at her through the window of a small vehicle that looked as if it were held together with baling twine and optimism. The front bumper sagged at one end and there was no glass in the passenger window.

  ‘Hello, my dear. Glad to see you’re ready on time. Punctuality is a virtue, don’t you think?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she agreed with an inward smile.

  They were soon whizzing out of the village with Anna clinging on for dear life thinking that though Florence might look like a sweet old lady, she drove like a V8 supercar champion. They narrowly missed several stray sheep on the high-hedged, narrow country lane that led to Trevone.

  ‘I’ve found them,’ Florence shouted over the roar of the engine. ‘The letters from Elizabeth Trebithick to her sister – my grandmother. You can read them when we get home.’

  ‘Oh good,’ said Anna, her hands gripping the door handle afresh as Florence careened around a blind corner, blithely oblivious to the white line in the middle of the road.

  ‘I’ll pop the kettle on,’ said Florence as they came to an abrupt stop in front of the house. ‘We can sit outside; it’s a lovely morning for it.’

  Anna shakily followed her up the garden path.

  ‘Now, here we are,’ she said, ushering Anna into the back garden, which was a pretty tangle of deep purple
pansies, scarlet zinnias, and orange marigolds and nasturtiums. As Anna sat turning the diary over and over in her hands she couldn’t help but smile at the thought that Granny Gus would have loved the colours. The two women were so similar – but then they were cousins, Anna reminded herself.

  Florence eventually returned with a tray of tea and a buff-coloured envelope. ‘We gave a lot of the family’s artefacts to the Trust,’ she explained. ‘But my grandmother couldn’t bear to part with these. Be careful, though; I fear they are now quite fragile.’

  Anna carefully opened the envelope and extracted several folded sheets of thin paper. ‘Oh my goodness,’ she said. ‘How wonderful that they have survived.’

  Florence nodded. ‘Indeed. It is the last we ever heard of her. It is some small blessing, I suppose, that they are full of love and joy.’

  Anna read the first of the letters and was transported to a fiesta in a Chilean estancia, reading of the feasting and the dancing that went on until dawn. In another, Elizabeth wrote warmly of her new husband, reassuring her sister that he was kind as well as handsome and strong. ‘I am helpless in the face of it,’ she had written. Anna smiled as she looked up from the pages.

  ‘Miss Deverell—’

  ‘Florence, please. “Miss Deverell” sounds like one of my students addressing me.’

  ‘Florence, then,’ said Anna. ‘There is something that you must also see. I mentioned that one of the things I found was a diary. I finished reading it last night. It was written by a woman named Marguerite, in the 1880s and ’90s. It tells the story of her arrival in Sydney by boat to make a new life for herself.’

  ‘But I don’t understand,’ Florence said, puzzled. ‘There’s never been a Marguerite in the family, and certainly not at that time.’

  ‘She brought with her a child – I presumed she was her daughter – Lily,’ Anna continued. ‘I only discovered the final piece of the story yesterday. Here …’ She opened it at the final few pages. ‘The handwriting is a little tricky, but I think you should at least read this.’