The Forbidden Orchid

by Sharon Biggs Waller

  Violetta considered for a moment. “Tell her he didn’t come back with you. That he has much to do to prepare for his voyage. She’ll understand that.”

  And indeed that’s what I told Mamma, but I’m not sure she understood me; so deep she was, once again, in the thrall of Collis Browne’s Chlorodyne.

  Later that day, I showed Violetta the editor’s letter.

  “Putrid with vermin?” she said, looking up from the letter. “Are you quite sure one of these men he is describing was Papa?”

  “The captain and his son called Papa Hugh. Hugh McGregor.” I took the letter from her and ran my finger under the name. “There it is. And that is why Papa wears those oversized smocks, to hide the scars.”

  Violetta looked doubtful. “Papa had nothing to do with this government mission. He’s not a soldier, and he’s never been one. The name is common enough. Perhaps there’s another Hugh McGregor.”

  “I wish that were true, but Papa didn’t deny it. And the captain’s son, Alex, told me a little bit about Papa’s ordeal and mentioned the burning of a palace. And I saw the scars on Papa’s wrist myself. Violetta, it was horrible. You can’t imagine how horrible.”

  “If it is true . . .” Violetta whispered. And then she voiced the worry that I had held in my mind. “Then what are we doing making him return to China?”

  THE CHILDREN WERE SO TIRED AFTER PLAYING WITH THE DOG THAT they went off to bed with no complaints, even Lily, who tended toward tantrums as her bedtime approached. Once the children were safe asleep, Violetta and I lay in our own bed, Kukla at our feet.

  “So go on, tell me how you came to have this dog.”

  I told her about Alex and how I had hidden the dog under my crinoline, in between Violetta’s peals of laughter.

  “I’m sure the boy was most grateful.” She turned on her side, her eyes snapping with interest. “Is he handsome?”

  I nodded. “Yes. Very.” I recalled Alex’s warm eyes and the few inches of skin between his wrists and elbows where he had rolled up his sleeves. And how noble his profile looked. And how sweet his expression was when he looked at his little dog.

  “How much?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Violetta. How does one quantify hand-someness?”

  She flopped over on her back and played with the end of her braid, considering. “Is he handsome like Heathcliff or handsome like Mr. Darcy?”

  “I don’t know. If I have to choose I’ll say Heathcliff, but he does not share his black temperament.”

  She sucked in her breath. “Tragically handsome, then.”

  I laughed. “I suppose so. If there is such a thing.” Suddenly I felt a waft of happiness and love toward my little sister. Her charming imagination was sometimes so adorable I wanted to hug her. Kukla, perhaps feeling left out of our conversation, rose on her little paws and moved to lie down between us, resting her head on Violetta’s shoulder.

  “You’re lucky,” she said, stroking the dog’s little triangle-shaped ear. “The offerings are very thin on the ground here. No tragically handsome boys to be found.” She turned on her side again, resting her chin on the dog’s head. “Do you fancy him?”

  I didn’t want to think about whether I fancied Alex Balashov or not. Certainly I didn’t want to admit it to my little sister, who wouldn’t let such a thing pass. “No, I don’t,” I said. “Not a bit.”

  “Hmmm,” she said. “Your face is telling me differently. You do fancy this boy.”

  I threw her a sour look. “Yes, and I’m going to run away with him and marry him and live a life sailing the seven seas with him. And while we’re at it, fairies will fly us to a land filled with boiled sweets and chocolates that grow on trees.”

  “Sometimes I don’t believe you have a romantic bone in your body, Elodie. Sometimes I think you’ll end up married to some dull boy and live the dullest life imaginable.”

  “Go to sleep, Violetta,” I said.

  She harrumphed and turned over. Before I blew out the candle I looked at the little dog, whose brown eyes regarded me so intently. I wished she could speak, because I wanted to ask her all about her tragically handsome master.

  KUKLA SLOTTED PERFECTLY INTO OUR FAMILY. SHE LOVED TO SLEEP in a basket by the fire that was two sizes too small for her, but she always insisted on squashing herself inside of it, her tail and head balancing on the rim. She adored the little girls and didn’t mind if one of them pulled her tail or stepped on her paw accidently. Calla, in particular, took to her, reading to the little dog from her picture books. I found them together one morning, Calla’s cheek resting on Kukla’s furry back like a pillow. I had to remind the girls that Kukla was only a guest, and that she would be returning to Alex any day now. But I had a thought in my mind to find the girls a dog. One with a jovial temperament like Kukla’s who would return a merry atmosphere to our home.

  If my family was happy to have me back home, Deacon Wainwright certainly was not. Church had become almost unbearable with his blank stares. He treated me coldly, behaving as though he were a jilted beau rather than my deacon. I was beginning to think that Papa was correct, and that Deacon Wainwright did want me to become his wife, and the thought of it filled me with dread, especially when I started to consider the more intimate aspects of married life. I wasn’t completely in the dark about what went on between a husband and wife. My mother had made sure to sit me down before my monthlies first arrived to tell me what lay in store. She herself had been left ignorant when she was a young woman and she was terrified when her body began to change. A kind chambermaid had seen her blood-soaked cloths, took pity on her, and told her about how babies were started.

  Unbidden, my imagination conjured up a pantomime of our wedding night. I saw the Deacon, waiting outside our bedroom while I changed out of my wedding gown. After knocking and waiting for my invitation, he entered the room, wearing a long nightshirt that exposed his nobbley knees and skinny calves. A nightcap to keep away drafts sat perched upon his head. After one perfunctory kiss, he did his marital duty quickly, his head politely to one side, our nightdresses rucked up, exposing only what was necessary.

  I couldn’t think of anything worse.

  I stared at Deacon Wainwright railing away about something or another in his pulpit, feeling a flush creep up my neck, unable to stop myself from thinking of the deacon in any other way now.

  Violetta, catching me in the middle of this hideous daydream, elbowed me in the side and hissed in my ear. “What’s come over you? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost. We’re meant to be singing a hymn. Stand up!”

  I stood hastily, staring down at Violetta’s hymnal, mortified. I spent the rest of the service with my face buried in my Bible, unable to look in Deacon Wainwright’s direction for fear of my imagination posting yet another marital encounter between the two of us.

  At the end of April, a letter arrived from Papa telling me that the ship was ready to depart and I was to meet him at Richmond with Kukla the next day. I was glad to leave Kent, gladder than I thought possible, and this made me feel immensely guilty. But it hurt me that Papa hadn’t offered to fetch me himself.

  So I made the journey to Richmond on my own. I was glad I had watched Deacon Wainwright so carefully on the first journey to Richmond. Kukla, unhappy with the lead I had fashioned from a bit of clothesline, had been a nightmare, refusing to settle at my feet. Instead she spent her time whimpering and testing the limits of her tether and my patience. In the end I held her on my lap so she could peer out of the window at the scenery, and this seemed to settle her.

  I disembarked at Richmond Station, my valise in one hand and Kukla’s lead in the other. The station was quite busy with people bustling all around, and since Madame Kukla refused to walk on her lead, I picked her up and tucked her under my arm. I glanced around the arrival hall and saw Papa waiting by the clock.

  Kukla wriggled frantically in my arms
as I made my way through the crowds. Little beast! “I cannot wait to deliver you back to your master,” I told her. She pressed her cold nose against my cheek and wagged her tail.

  Papa did not appear gladsome to see me. His face was pinched with strain, and he tugged repeatedly at the cuffs of his jacket.

  “Good morning, Papa.” I set Kukla on the floor and leaned forward to kiss his cheek, but Papa recoiled at my touch and stepped away from my embrace.

  “What is it, Papa? Are you quite well?”

  “I’m sorry, my dear, but I’m a little out of sorts this morning.” He was acting strangely, staring at the face of each person who passed by, peering intently at each one.

  “Are you looking for someone?”

  “Did anyone follow you from Edencroft?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the crowd. “Did you see anyone looking at you on the train?”

  “Looking at me? What do you mean?”

  “The question is a simple one. Did anyone see you? Did their eyes lie upon your personage? I don’t know how I can make the question clearer.”

  “Only the conductor when he clipped my ticket.”

  “There were no passengers in your car? I find that difficult to believe,” he barked.

  “Of course there were passengers,” I said, feeling hurt by his tone of voice and line of questioning. I felt as though he was trying to pin some sort of blame upon me. “But they were minding to their own affairs. Why are you asking me this?”

  “Because someone has seen fit to burgle my cottage. While I was out walking this morning.”

  “Burgle?” I was astonished. Burglaries were common enough in cities, but Papa’s cottage was well inside the garden. A thief would have to know the cottage was there to make it worth his while. And Papa didn’t seem to own or keep anything in the cottage worth stealing.

  “That’s what I said!”

  “What did they take, Papa?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to look, have I? I’ve had to come here to greet you so you can take that dog back to where it came.”

  “But Papa . . .” Kukla, wound up by the crowds of people pressing around her, began to tug at her tether. “Kukla!” I chided.

  “Control that damnable dog, will you!” he said.

  “It’s hardly her fault. She’s not used to such crowds, I expect. She’s only a dog, and she doesn’t understand.” I leaned down to pick Kukla up, but she slipped from my grasp. She gamboled around my father as though on a merry chase and then raced back to me, dragging the clothesline around his ankles as she did.

  The change in my father was immediate. He punched his fists in the air. “Leave off!” he shouted, his voice high and trembling. “Leave off! Leave off!” Papa’s face was wild with fear, his face white as milk. Kukla, terrified by my father’s shouting, jumped away, snugging the rope around his ankles.

  I dropped to my knees, uncaring of the people stopping to stare, and untangled the rope. I scooped Kukla into my arms. “It was only the dog, Papa,” I said. “See? She didn’t mean any harm; it was the crowd that frightened her and she tugged her lead around you.”

  I might have been addressing a statue. Papa stood unblinking, staring at nothing. Tears pooled in his eyes, and he began to shake all over. I took his arm. “Papa, please! It was only the dog.”

  “Man’s round the bend,” I heard someone say to his companion as he walked passed us. “Belongs in an asylum and not out amongst decent people.”

  “Papa?” I touched his arm, but it was almost like stone. I didn’t know what to do. No one stopped to help. Passersby left a wide berth around us, as though Papa’s fit might rub up against them. We stood there for what seemed like ages. I soothed my father as best as I could, hoping he would snap out of his catatonic state, when a man in a bowler hat and wire-rimmed spectacles stopped.

  “May I help at all?” he asked, his voice soft-spoken and gentle.

  “My father has taken a turn,” I said. “Could you help me settle him into a cab, perhaps?”

  “Yes, yes of course!” The man waved for a porter and handed him a coin. “Will you find a cab for us and take the young lady’s dog and valise?” The boy nodded, took Kukla’s lead and my bag, knuckled his forehead, and headed outside, half dragging the reluctant dog behind him.

  “Now then, my good man. Let’s see what we’re about, shall we?” The man took Papa by one arm and I took the other, and little by little, my heart breaking with every step, we shuffled my stricken father out of the station and onto Kew Road, where a cab stood waiting. Papa gave us little resistance as we settled him into the cab.

  “Take him home, miss,” the man said, his hands resting on the cab’s door, “and have a doctor look after him.”

  I opened my reticule. “I wish to pay you for your help and for the porter,” I said.

  He waved his hand. “Not at all, miss. It was my pleasure to assist you.” He touched the brim of his hat. “Best of luck to you both.”

  Papa had recovered a little of his wits on the short ride to his cottage, but the fit had exhausted him. He remained quiet, refusing to look at me. Instead he sat staring out the window.

  I was never more grateful to see Papa’s little cottage nestled on the edge of Kew’s arboretum. It looked a paradise after the horrors of that morning, and I could understand why he had chosen to seek sanctuary here. Papa alighted from the cab, shrugging off my attempts to help him. He staggered to his door, as though sleepwalking, fumbled in his pocket, and took out a large brass key. The key rattled against the escutcheon as he tried over and over to fit it into the lock. Wanting to spare him further humiliation, I stepped back, pretending to be distracted by Kukla, who was wagging her tail and staring off into the trees.

  Finally the key slid into its mark, and the door swung open. I followed Papa in, expecting to be met with neat shelves lined with books, his plants and papers organized just so. But that was not the scene that met us.

  The cottage hadn’t simply been burgled; it had been ransacked. Every book had been pulled out of his bookcase, shaken out and then flung onto the floor. The pots had been smashed—the shattered clay pots and compost dumped all over the room, and the little plants lay forsaken on the tile, their leaves shriveling and their blooms crushed under an unknown foot. Papa’s desk drawers had been pulled out and overturned, and the contents of his traveling trunk had been scattered across the room.

  I stood in the middle of this, staring, my mouth open. Papa hesitated, scanning the mess, and then shook his head. He shuffled through the shambles, climbed the stairs to the loft, and left me alone.

  My father’s journals. His treasure map that led to the Queen’s Fancy. I searched the shelf where Papa kept them, looked through the mess on the floor. But they were not there.

  They were gone.

  THE ONLY PERSON I KNEW AT KEW WAS SIR WILLIAM HOOKER. I shut Kukla into the little shed out back and went to seek him out. I found him after one of the garden workers directed me to the herbarium. He stood at a bench near one of the iron spiral staircases, leaning on his elbows, examining a pressed specimen.

  “Come to see your father depart?” he said, his face kindly. After I told him what had befallen my father he stood up, abandoning his task, and returned to the cottage with me immediately.

  “You say the dog set your father off?” he asked.

  “It was its lead. It wrapped round Papa’s legs.”

  Sir William glanced at me, his expression worried.

  “He was already upset when I met him at the station. When we returned home, I found the reason why. His cottage had been ransacked. I’m sure these two incidents caused the turn.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear this. Very sorry indeed.”

  “Has this happened before?” I asked. Sir William seemed reluctant to speak. “I know what befell him in China. You don’t have to keep his secret, because I
’ve seen his wrists. I’ve seen the scars.”

  Sir William stopped walking. “Does he know you possess this knowledge?”

  “Yes, but he says we don’t know all of it.”

  Sir William let out a sigh. “I don’t know what to say to put you at ease. Mr. Buchanan has not taken me into his confidence about everything.”

  “But we are his family,” I replied, frustrated. “Why does he insist on hiding anything from us?”

  “I can tell you this—the trauma he suffered was truly wretched, and he does not wish to burden his family with such knowledge. The fit you witnessed is not a one-off. He’s had them many times, many times since he returned from China. It’s quite startling, as you now understand. He refused to return home until his health improved because he didn’t want his family to see the state of him. It’s a terrible thing for a man to be seen as weak, especially in the eyes of his family. And as much as it pains me, I have to respect his wishes. I suggest you do the same. Don’t press him. Don’t force him to confide in you. He’ll come to tell you of it in his own time. If he chooses to.”

  We continued through the garden in silence, past the shiplike glass Palm House and the massive cedar and oak trees, whose boughs had stretched ever skyward for hundreds of years. The beauty of Kew felt utterly at odds with the horror my father had experienced. The trees, palms, and orchids of Kew had continued to thrive, while my father, the very person who had discovered many of these delights, was tortured. While people in a faraway land saw fit to torment him so unspeakably that he would remain in a prison of his own mind, perhaps forever.

  AT THE COTTAGE, WE FOUND PAPA RESTORING ORDER TO THE ROOM. He stood surrounded by chaos, carefully slotting books back into place.

  Sir William stopped short when he saw the mess.

  “Ah, Sir William,” Papa said, looking up briefly from his task. “I do apologize for the clutter, but it appears that I’ve been burgled.”

  “When did this happen?” Sir William asked.