The Forbidden Orchid

by Sharon Biggs Waller

  My father had met Mr. Darwin many times. His home, Down House, was not far from our own, and both he and Papa belonged to the Geological Society. Like my father, Mr. Darwin had once been very devout, and a clerical student. But after he’d made his voyage on HMS Beagle, he became critical of the Bible and thought all religions might be valid, not just Christianity.

  I hugged the book to my chest. Papa had always been very free about sharing his books with us, encouraging us to explore his library. Our parish school taught us girls the very basics, with an emphasis on religion and housewifery, and only until we turned thirteen. Papa hated that our education was so sparse, so he had a standing order with a London bookseller who sent us several books each month. I alone received them to unwrap the brown paper and twine and to shelve them by category, carefully writing down the titles in Papa’s library journal. Violetta availed herself of the novels, but I loved the books on geography and natural history. My favorite book was an enormous leather-bound atlas that sat perched on a stand near Papa’s desk. I spent hours turning the pages and then locating the countries on his globe, spinning it round slowly, reciting the names of the countries—exotic names like Ceylon, Malaya, and Zanzibar—wishing that I might someday see them for myself. “Thank you, Papa. I would love to read it,” I said.

  He tapped my nose with his forefinger, smiling. “Perhaps do so when you’re on your own. Your mother is angry enough with me as it is. I don’t think she’d like you to have such a controversial book.” He kissed my cheek, put his hat on, and climbed into the waiting carriage. The horses stamped their hooves and chewed their bits, eager to be off. The carriage driver spoke gently to them, waiting for my father’s command. Papa let down the window and leaned out. “Look after your mother and sisters for me, Elodie. I’m leaving for China next week to collect plants.”

  “Isn’t China quite dangerous right now?” I asked. The Second China War, sparked by China’s seizure of a British merchant ship, had been ongoing for several years, and although China was a large country and Britain was prevailing, I worried that Papa might be swept up in the violence.

  Papa waved his hand. “Oh, no. I’ll be moving through the interior, well away from the action. The China War is not a conflict of the common man but rather one between the emperor and the West. Some of the villagers won’t even know there is a war ongoing. I’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “How long will you be away, Papa?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  “I plan to return in October.”

  “Perhaps you will be home in time for my birthday.”

  “Your birthday?” Papa furrowed his brow. “Yes, of course, your birthday is in October, is it not? The twenty-seventh, I believe?”

  “The first,” I replied.

  “Yes, yes of course. The first.” He thought again. “I’m not sure, but I will try. I will write to you all, but remember it may take months for the letters to reach you. I don’t want for you to worry, but if anything goes awry, you can write to Sir William Jackson Hooker at Kew, and he will assist you in my stead.”

  “Are you collecting for Kew now?” I asked, thrilled at the thought of Papa working for such a venerable institution.

  “I have collected for Kew for the past several years.” He smiled. “Only don’t tell my employer. I don’t think he’d like to know he’s not my only priority.”

  The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, held the largest collection of plants in the world. Plant hunters traveled to the far reaches of the earth to discover new wonders for the garden. The most exotic of these lived in a marvel of glass and iron engineering called the Palm House, which resembled an upside-down ship. Inside, massive palm trees from faraway lands towered over delicate flowering plants below. Visitors stepped over the threshold, leaving cold, rainy England behind, and into a warm, steamy rainforest, the mist gentle on their faces and the scent of the jackfruit trees and flowering vines filling their senses.

  Or so I’d read. I’d never been to Kew, which lay in Richmond upon Thames, an hour’s train journey away. Indeed, I’d never left Kent in the whole of my life. Edencroft was my life and always would be. I would have loved nothing more than to see Kew for myself. Dash it, I wanted to go farther than Kew. I wanted to feel a real rainforest’s mist on my face and smell the jackfruit trees in their native land and not in a glasshouse, no matter how marvelously built.

  “I long to go with you, Papa,” I blurted out.

  “Oh, my dear,” Papa said, his voice wistful. “If you were a boy, I’d take you with me directly you asked.” He smiled. “The things I would show you! But alas, such adventures are not for you. Besides, I need you here to look after Mamma and the girls. You are my eyes and ears whilst I’m away, and I depend on you to remain my steadfast and dependable Elodie.”

  I felt ridiculous for showing Papa my heart and for making him voice what I loathed to hear: Because I was a girl, I would always fall short in father’s eyes. I would never be able to make up for the loss of my brother. I would never be able to walk by his side. The only way I could make him proud was to remain home, locked like a fairy doll inside of a glass Wardian case, looking after the other fairy dolls. I looked down the road that led to the train station, unable to meet his eyes. “I know, Papa.”

  “Please tell your mother . . .” He hesitated and glanced at her bedroom windows, where the drapes remained closed. “Never mind. Good-bye, my dear.” He tapped the roof of the carriage with his walking stick, and the driver clucked to his horses.

  “Good-bye, Papa.” I stood on the gravel drive and watched until the carriage had crested the hill and disappeared down the other side.

  The weather was threatening snow, the sky grim and foreboding. I went inside and up to Violetta’s and my bedroom. I tucked Mr. Darwin’s book on top of my wardrobe, behind the ornate carving where no one would look, to read later. Then I went in search of the little glass dollhouse, finally finding it in the scullery. Our maid had placed it on a high shelf next to a stack of saucepans and copper bowls. I stood on a stool and fetched it down, trying not to jostle it and upset the plants. I carried it to my bedroom, where I placed it on my dressing table. I looked at the little dolls, the wee twig figures with the faces drawn on and little dresses made from scraps of hessian, and I couldn’t help it. A great sadness overtook me, and I cried. I cried for my father’s kind gesture, so misunderstood, and for my mother’s broken heart, but most of all I cried for myself, because I wanted my papa.

  I wouldn’t see or hear from my father again until April of 1861, when the bailiffs came to take our possessions away.

  TWO

  My sisters had no interest in my father’s gift, so I alone cared for the little glasshouse, which I kept on a shelf in our bedroom. But I didn’t mind. The house and its contents stirred a fancy for plants I’d long harbored. A small conservatory attached to the back of our house had lain neglected for years, storing broken furniture, chipped crockery, and piles of old newspaper. In early February of 1860 I decided to return it to its former use as a greenhouse. I carried out all the rubbish and burned it on a bonfire, and washed the grime and soot off the windows, letting in a flood of sunshine. On my hands and knees, I scrubbed years of dirt off the flagstone tile floor until the former pattern shone through—a handsome red-and-gold diamond pattern inlaid with a twining green vine.

  An old dilapidated fountain sat in the middle of the room. It was fed and powered by a small stream outside, and I wanted to see it moving again. I had no idea how to fix such a thing, but I had nothing to lose in trying. So I took it apart, drawing a diagram of where everything went so I could reassemble it. I cleaned all the bits and pieces with a small wire brush and put it back together. While the little children and Violetta waited inside, watching the fountain for signs of life, I removed my shoes and stockings, tucked up my skirts, and waded into the cold stream to locate the pipe that led into the conservatory. It was blocked with leaves and a d
ead frog, and so I pulled these out, wincing just a little when my fingers brushed against the frog’s slimy skin. The water rushed into the pipe, and I heard the cries of delight from the children and the flowing of the water as it fell from the tiers of the fountain

  I consulted my father’s books about plants in his study to learn about botanical collection and cultivation. Bit by bit, I filled the room with pots of ferns, fuchsias, and primroses. The conservatory was my refuge, and when I was in it, I felt closer to Papa. Some of the plants, I found on my walks through the nearby woods. As I dug them up, I pretended to be plant hunting with Papa, discovering a new fern and exclaiming over it. It was a silly game, I knew that, but it comforted me.

  SUMMER CAME AND WENT, AND PAPA FAILED TO ACKNOWLEDGE Dahlia’s birth in mid-September, but that was not so unusual. It took at least three months for mail to reach us from the Orient. That, coupled with Papa’s remote locations, meant we knew we’d hear from him rarely. We had already received the usual wodge of letters, all at once, when they arrived on a homebound China clipper in late spring, but we’d had nothing since then.

  Mamma had a difficult time giving birth to the baby, laboring long and suffering more than she ever had before. Her stoicism and practicality had grown with every pregnancy and delivery, but there was something different about this one. She wanted Papa by her side, and nothing Violetta or I could say or do would comfort her. The village physician, Dr. Thumpston, visited her late in the day, hours after her waters broke, and dosed her with some sort of medicine, which calmed her for several hours but did nothing to bring the baby forward.

  Late in the night, in her delirium, she called out to Papa time and time again, waking the children. Violetta and our maid tried to keep the little ones occupied in their nursery while I tended to Mamma, but her cries were so loud that the girls became frightened.

  In the early morning I put my cloak on and hurried out to fetch Dr. Thumpston, who was not pleased to be drawn away from his breakfast table.

  “She’s been laboring harder than ever, Dr. Thumpston,” I said as we walked back to our house. “Calling out for my father.”

  “Of course,” he replied, huffing to keep up with me. “Of course she would. Any woman who has been abandoned by her husband would do so. She is suffering from melancholy. If she would only try to turn her attention to her baby, she would be delivered of it immediately.”

  I stopped walking. “I apologize, Dr. Thumpston, but did I hear you quite correctly? Did you say my father abandoned my mother? How did you come of this knowledge?”

  The doctor took advantage of our pause to set his bag onto a nearby stone wall and lean over to catch his breath. Our village doctor was an elderly man, and not given much to smiling. He was as stout as he was tall, and Violetta had remarked on several occasions that his dour countenance coupled with his penchant for dark brown suits gave him the appearance and personality of a block of wood.

  He cleared his throat several times before answering. “I have no direct knowledge of this, but anyone possessed of sense could see that your family has been abandoned. Is your father currently present? From what I understand, he has not been home for some time.”

  “My father is in China, sir,” I replied. “His occupation bids him to be away from home for a goodly length of time. He has not abandoned my mother any more than a naval captain or soldier has abandoned his.”

  “Is your father a naval captain or soldier?”

  “No, he—”

  The doctor interrupted my reply with a glare, and the words stuck in my throat. “I have not the time nor the inclination to debate this with you.” He stood upright, collected his bag. “Now, do you wish me to deliver your mother of this child, or shall I return to my home and finish my breakfast?”

  I shook my head. “I do apologize. Of course, let us proceed.”

  As we walked along, the doctor puffing at my side, I couldn’t get the word the doctor had used out of my head—abandoned.

  WITH THE USE OF FORCEPS AND CHLOROFORM, DR. THUMPSTON coaxed forth our new sister. After my mother had a cursory look at the child and named her Dahlia, Dr. Thumpston dosed her with another cup of medicine, and she fell into a sleep that did not abate for days.

  When Mamma had failed to rise from childbed after the customary fortnight, Dr. Thumpston prescribed Collis Browne’s Chlorodyne to help her exhausted nervous system recover, but she seemed drained of all life. She wanted to lie abed, rousing only to attend church, and even then she was in a daze, mumbling into her folded hands during prayer and staring round her with wide eyes during the lesson.

  Because Mamma was unable to look after herself, much less an infant, Violetta and I minded the rest of the children while a nurse hired from the village saw to Dahlia. The doctor, snapping his bag shut and handing over another bottle of Collis Browne’s Chlorodyne, said she would recover soon and that we shouldn’t worry, but as the days drew on, I began to feel as though my mother and father were both gone. And never coming back.

  When my seventeenth birthday arrived in October, Mamma was too ill to assist me in changing my wardrobe, so on my own I lengthened and widened my skirts by sewing on a wide flounce and donning one of my mother’s cage crinolines. It took me a little while to get used to my new silhouette, and indeed I had to move many of my plants up to a higher shelf so I wouldn’t turn them over while I worked. The first morning I wore my new clothing down to breakfast, Violetta jumped up from her place and hugged me hard.

  “I forgot it was your birthday. You should have said something, Elodie,” she said. “I could have baked something special for tea.”

  “Never mind, Violetta,” I said, stepping back from her embrace and taking my seat at the table. At seventeen I was now an adult, and fripperies and birthday sweets were for children.

  “I could have at least helped you with your skirts.”

  It was sweet of her to say so, and I could have asked her to help me, if only to have someone to talk to while I sewed. But more and more I was learning that I preferred to do things on my own, and I found that I liked my own company more than anyone else’s, which worried me. I wasn’t sure why I felt this way, but even with my sister, my dearest friend, I felt somehow wrong and awkward in her presence.

  I used to have a friend from school. Her name was Cordelia Brooks, and we had shared everything together, but just before Dahlia was born I started to draw away. She stopped believing me when I told her I had to go home, had to see to the children. Her feelings were hurt, and soon she stopped handing me sweets from her father’s confectionary shop after church, stopped asking me to visit, stopped speaking to me. It was as though we had never known each other at all. It was my fault, and I knew it. So now, at church, our gaze would meet for a brief moment before she looked away, pretending she didn’t see me.

  I felt no one could understand me because I didn’t understand myself, and I didn’t know how to explain it. So I chose to be alone than confront this new truth.

  My days continued on, one sliding into the next, their very sameness blurring them together. Rise, wash, help our maid, Mary, start the fires, see the little ones dressed, the middle ones off to school, sit with Mamma, fetch the children home from school, help Mary prepare tea, feed the children, wash the children, put them to bed, sit with Mamma. And again and again. In between all of this I managed to snatch time in my conservatory or an hour outside the village searching for new plants. If I hadn’t had those little respites, I would have run mad.

  October drew on, and Papa hadn’t returned to England. Nor had we received answers to our letters or word of his whereabouts. Mamma grew more and more despondent as her letters went unanswered and no word came from him. She stopped asking after the mail, and with each day’s passing she seemed to get a little worse. I couldn’t help but think Papa’s presence would help her greatly. In early November I wrote to Sir William at Kew, who replied that he had not
heard from my father, either, nor had he returned on the ship he’d booked passage on, which had returned to England in late September. But Sir William noted that the China War had clogged correspondence coming out of several treaty ports in that country, and that my father might be on his way home as he wrote. I shouldn’t worry, he’d written.

  But he might as well have told me to stop breathing. This was the longest we’d ever gone without hearing from Papa, and the fact that he hadn’t gotten on the steamship alarmed me. I knew in my heart that something was wrong.

  Mamma’s illness and my father’s disappearance had become the talk of the village. It seemed that we were either the family to pity—ten females on their own without a man to help them—or the family to scorn: what moral misstep had Mamma made that had caused my father to abandon her without a word? Why had she not made a home of perfect peace to encourage Mr. Buchanan to stay with his family?

  It was impossible to walk to the village without being stared at or tutted over. Our situation made Violetta so angry that her repeated slamming of our bedroom door caused the plaster over the lintel to fall away and reveal the lath beneath.

  “He’s missing,” I told Violetta, insisting she listen. “He’s not abandoned us. I’m sure he remains in China. Somewhere.”

  “Then why hasn’t he written? Why hasn’t he sent word of his whereabouts?” Violetta was sitting in the window seat on the upstairs landing, her knees tucked up under her skirt and a book facedown on the embroidered cushion.

  “Perhaps he cannot,” I said. “Perhaps he is in a very remote area.”

  “Do you know what one of the Thatcher girls said to me today?” Violetta turned away from the window, her face rigid with anger. “Suzette—the one with the blonde ringlets and front teeth as large as headstones. She said she’d heard that Papa had the bailiffs at his heels, and that is why he remains abroad. She asked me if that was the truth. I said nothing. I snubbed her and left her standing there with her ridiculous mouth gaping like a trout’s.”