The Memento

by Christy Ann Conlin

  The head in the mirror broke into laughter and Margaret gasped. We turned around and there was nothing there. Margaret yelped, and I put my hands over my mouth in fear. A young woman stood in the doorway in the muted light.

  “Pomeline! What are you doing here?” I yelled.

  Margaret was almost crying.

  Pomeline seemed nervous, like we’d scared her as much as she’d scared us. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. What did you think? That I was a ghost? It should be me screaming, seeing the two of you. I’m sure this is Granny’s idea. She’s lucky you’re as patient as you are. She’ll be trying to get me in her musty garden party clothes next. Granny’s very good at getting what she wants, isn’t she?” Pomeline fanned herself with her hand. She was flushed. “It’s warm up here. I was looking for some books in one of the guest rooms. My father kept a variety of his things stored up here. I didn’t expect to see anyone on the third floor.” Pomeline stepped back into the hall, adjusting her dress.

  Pomeline had what Loretta called poise, even when she was startled.

  “We should open some windows,” she said. “Air conditioning is one thing I miss from the city.” A drop of sweat rolled down her forehead and stopped between her eyebrows like a crystal-clear pearl.

  Margaret was shifting her weight from foot to foot, her arms crossed, pulling the uniform crooked. Margaret didn’t know how to behave around a girl her own age, let alone someone like Pomeline. She cleared her throat. “Must be awful quiet out here after living in the city. No television, no friends, nothing to do,” Margaret said. “No wonder you go wandering around the house, trying to find anything to keep you from dying of boredom.”

  Pomeline came back into herself and gazed at Margaret in that same pitying way Marigold looked at people who didn’t understand her. “I don’t mind at all. I’m so busy with the piano. I’ll see you later then, girls. I might have a nap before lunch. I haven’t been sleeping well. The party planners are coming out tomorrow and it’s going to be busy.” Pomeline put her hand on the wall momentarily, like the weight of the whole house was upon her, then stood up, posture perfect, and walked back down the stairs without making a sound.

  Margaret sat at one of the old sewing machines. It had a foot pump that she started pressing so that it whirred and clunked. “She might look young but she acts like her grandmother. Who takes a nap at eighteen? Did you hear how she talked to me? She thinks she’s better than us because of all their money but she don’t fool me like she’s fooling you. She’s not living in the real world.”

  We heard a creak from the hall, and another creak and another. We tiptoed to the door and saw Dr. Baker standing on the landing, his hand on the railing. He waved up at us. “Girls. I heard your voices. Now look at the two of you …” He looked at us both from head to toe and burst out laughing. “How quaint. You both look so grown up. My goodness. This must be Marigold’s doing. You’re good to indulge her, girls. And you both look lovely. We need a breeze in here. My God, it’s hot as Hades.” He too started fanning himself.

  “Mrs. Parker thought we might want to wear uniforms,” I said. “I didn’t know you were out to Petal’s End today.”

  Dr. Baker fussed with his sleeves. “I got here early this morning. I’m out for a few days. Well, I must go check on Marigold.” He hesitated a moment, then left.

  We stood there until we couldn’t hear his footsteps no more. Neither of us said a word to each other but I knew Margaret thought what I did. Dr. Baker hadn’t been coming up the stairs—he’d been going down them, trying to sneak by without us seeing.

  I went back into the room and put the embroidery basket in the box with the frames and carried them down the stairs behind Margaret.

  When we got back to Marigold’s room she was resting and Dr. Baker wasn’t there. Margaret cleared her throat and Marigold opened her eyes. She put her hands to her lips and pointed at me, staring. She snapped out of it, shaking her head. “Oh my. Fancy, for a moment I thought Marilyn Mosher was standing in front of me. She was young when she wore that, just a few years older than you are now. You are more congenial. She never liked being told what to do, and that’s simply part of working here, that you’ll do as you’re told, and behave properly. It’s too bad your mother didn’t understand that.” Marigold rubbed her face on the stiff side. She gave a cough and took a deep breath. “Let’s think of more pleasant things then, shall we? It’s just like when I was young,” she said. “We’ll skip the embroidery today, girls. There’s so much to plan for the party now. Never underestimate an old woman. Dr. Baker has found us some professionals to help plan. Ladies he knows in the city. Isn’t that exciting? Loretta will be looking for you, Fancy. I kept you too long.”

  I smoothed my apron and left them there. I picked up the box I’d left in the hall, hurried back to my room and put it in the closet.

  The Parkers took their lunch on the verandah. Pomeline appeared to have cooled down. Dr. Baker was laughing and chatting about some fancy event and how the same ladies who had planned it would be planning the garden party. Margaret and I began clearing their dishes. Loretta came out then, with her Lady Dundee cake and iced tea with lemon slices, and we served. Marigold took a bite of her dessert, tasting the whipped cream, smacking her lips. “Now, my cousin Harold and his wife Sakura are arriving tomorrow. Harry is helping me with my will. Estelle won’t like that one bit but it’s really none of her concern.”

  Pomeline sighed. “You know what Mummy’s like, Granny. She’s just worried things won’t be taken care of.”

  Marigold reached out and squeezed Pomeline’s wrist, the blue veins bulging on her hands, her diamond rings loose on her fingers. “Your mother should have thought more of your father and treated him better. That’s what she should have been thinking of. But let’s not talk about the past. Pomeline, you are practising all the time. That piano goes night and day. You really must spend more time in the garden again. Cousin Harry will get you doing a few things. Look how pale you are! Perhaps Dr. Baker should give you a thorough checkup.”

  Margaret cleared her throat and tried to catch my eye but I kept my gaze on the plates I was stacking. Pomeline said there was no need, and Marigold shook her finger at her. “You need to have a social life. I’ve never known a Parker who didn’t like to socialize. Or who worked all the time at such frivolous tasks. You must think of others a bit more. The party will be wonderful for you. Perhaps we can invite some nice young men. Really, darling, I admire your single-mindedness where music is concerned but it’s not healthy for a young woman to have no other interests.”

  Pomeline pointed at me. “Fancy’s growing up. Look at her red lips. And look at their lovely outfits. Granny, you have them all done up.”

  Marigold took another bite of her Lady Dundee cake. “I think they look exquisite. So many happy memories. It’s where you choose to focus, isn’t that so, Dr. Baker?”

  Dr. Baker didn’t say a word, just patted Marigold’s hand and smiled while Pomeline pushed her plate away.

  10.

  The Cousins

  “ ‘ALL BENEATH HIS EYE was a solitude. The strange plants were basking in the sunshine, and now and then nodding gently to one another, as if in acknowledgment of sympathy and kindred …’ Isn’t that just absolutely spectacular? Spectacular, I tell you. A marvellous collection. Hand-painted plates. Truly extraordinary, both the library here and this book.” Harry carefully displayed the book, as though he had just hit the treasure trove at an estate auction. He showed it to the swans in the pond but they paid him no mind. He shrugged and turned back to us.

  “I was here once as a boy, years and years ago. I wasn’t at all interested in the library, in the books. I was mad for the lily pond. It’s full of remarkable algae and emerald duckweed and salamanders. And there were always so many fireflies and frogs. It’s remarkable how age engenders appreciation. When we saw Jenny in the city I could tell she was a girl who likes books. It’s a pity she’s not here. She would have
a terrific time. ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter,’ Fancy—that’s what this story is called. It’s dreadfully sad. Dreadfully beautiful, but sad. That’s what happens, of course, sometimes, when science has a relationship with nature: horrible beauty.”

  That’s how Harold Prescott talked. On and on and on, prattling away, with his funny accent and his big booming voice. He was unendingly joyous, whether he was talking about some dusty book or a piece of toast or a blazing sunset. I remember him standing there on the deck of the Atelier a week after they arrived. It was their favourite spot, and Harry and Sakura would come out with notepads and books to take their breakfast. It was mid morning and the gardeners would go by occasionally. Harry would call out to them. He was a botanist, and although he specialized in woodland flowers he cherished the formal gardens. They reminded him of his happy childhood days, he said. It was impossible not to like that man, and it was as though he’d stepped out of some far part of the garden he’d been lost in for years, or from a room up on the third floor where he’d been looking out with a telescope at the stars.

  His wife, Sakura, was quiet. We never really knew much about her. She was much younger than Harry. He was the same age as Estelle, as Mr. Charlie had been, and Dr. Baker as well, but Harry seemed perpetually youthful. He had been a bachelor for years before going off to the land where tea was green and cherry blossoms spoke. Marigold described where Sakura came from that way. We got to know Sakura more through her expressions, how she’d shake her head and laugh in her quiet voice when Harry would hold forth on anything that caught his delight, which was pretty much everything. He even drew Pomeline out to the garden for morning tea sometimes. She’d been practising furiously and she was looking more peaked as the weeks passed. To Harry, life was marvellous. Art and I joked that it was his favourite word. And when they weren’t off on what he called an expedition, somewhere in the woods or along the shore, he’d be in the gardens. He would have slept in the Atelier if Sakura had let him.

  When I was cutting flowers he’d call me over. “Isn’t that marvellous, Fancy?” he’d say. Or if I brought out their tea and lemonade he’d insist I stay. “He’s terribly convivial,” Marigold gushed on the day they arrived, her voice like a little girl’s.

  Harry liked tomes about history and architecture. He liked maps and atlases. Mostly he liked books about plants and forests and gardens. He had come across that story about a poison garden, and he’d waved us all over as he gave his recitation. It was like he knew it by heart. He even liked Jenny’s swans and seemed to think if he spoke to them from the deck they’d eventually be tamed. They ignored him completely. That didn’t stop him from trying to gain their favour, and it seemed that morning he was performing “Rappaccini’s Daughter” that it was a show for them big white birds and their babies.

  “Hawthorne certainly understood the power of plants. But it’s so dark. So very pessimistic. Listen to this, Sakura, Pommie. And you too, Fancy. Put that tray down. I can’t believe they have a child working here. Aren’t there labour laws? From the outfits Cousin Marigold has you wearing I’d say we’re in another era so I expect they don’t apply at Petal’s End. Art, come over and take a break. Those fruit tarts look delicious. Hopefully none of this food is poisonous.” We all laughed and did as he asked.

  “Now listen to this,” Harry said. He swept his hand around as he hunched over, acting it out. “ ‘His figure soon emerged into view, and showed itself to be that of no common labourer, but a tall, emaciated, sallow, and sickly-looking man, dressed in a scholar’s garb of black. He was beyond the middle term of life, with grey hair, a thin, grey beard, and a face singularly marked with intellect and cultivation, but which could never, even in his more youthful days, have expressed much warmth of heart.’ That’s the father. His humanity is consumed by his desire for knowledge, for experimentation, experimentation at all costs. A scientist must be governed by a respect for the laws of nature.”

  Sakura was sketching water lilies with an amused expression. She was illustrating a book, and she kept her notepad with her at all times. We couldn’t read the book, the unusual characters running up and down in columns, but she said it was stories, and there was a garden in it, and swans.

  Harry wore the same clothes every day. We saw his laundry on the line so we knew he had five identical sets: khaki shorts and short-sleeved cotton shirts. Sakura wore a similar outfit only she had khaki skirts and white linen blouses. He and Sakura insisted on doing their own laundry. Loretta finally gave in. No one told Marigold, though. She’d have had a fit. Marigold was all for being friendly and having us sing in her choir and prance about the gardens, but there was a line. Her humanity was governed by a kindly respect for the laws-of-place, knowing yours and staying in it.

  Harry had a funny canvas hat with a long cord. Sometimes he let the hat dangle down his back, the cord pulling on his throat. Art said he looked like he was on safari. He had a knife and a magnifying glass strapped to his belt, binoculars, a small leather notebook and a backpack that he carried, always ready for an adventure. That’s what he’d been saying since he’d arrived the week before, how each day was an absolute adventure. Even Hector was around more since the cousins had arrived. Harry made a big deal of Hector’s knowledge of cars and mechanical things. He often asked him for help, and Hector lapped up the compliments.

  “ ‘Approaching the shrub, she threw open her arms, as with a passionate ardour, and drew its branches into an intimate embrace—so intimate that her features were hidden in its leafy bosom and her glistening ringlets all intermingled with the flowers.’ ” Didn’t he start laughing like someone invisible was tickling him under the arms with a feather. “Isn’t that just marvellous? It could be describing you, Pomeline, your enchanting face like a moonflower.” Harry beamed.

  “Harry worries the garden might be affecting the Parker ladies. That’s why they disagree,” Sakura said with a rippling laugh. She sounded nervous when she laughed but I don’t think she was. It was just her accent. I could never tell with her if she was serious or if she was joking.

  “Lord Prescott, Loretta says to ask you if you’d like a packed lunch for when you go off on your expedition.” I stood with my hands together.

  “Fancy Mosher. How many times must I ask you to call me Harry? You are such a wondrous thing.”

  “Loretta says we should be calling you Sir.”

  Sakura and Harry exchanged amused glances. Pomeline giggled.

  “Well, perhaps if it were my father here, or even my brother. My father is a duke, and my brother will be a duke. My father is ‘Your Grace.’ My brother is the Lord Prescott. I’m just the second son, and that’s jolly well fine by me. No one looks to you for even the most trifling thing. I can tell you that as a small child the burden and responsibility that would fall upon my brother was clear, and it sent me running through the gardens and the park-lands with whoops of joy that nature had arranged for him to come before me, to be the antecedent, so to speak. I can do as I please. Travel the world with my darling Sakura and discover exciting new plants and places. Come here and visit Cousin Marigold, and my simply fantastic young cousins, Pomeline and Jenny. And you charming people. It’s wonderful having family to visit. Marigold and I are cousins through our fathers, you know. Her father was a second cousin to my great uncle. And I believe her mother was my great-aunt’s father’s second cousin twice removed. This makes us the dearest of family.” Harry was striding up and down now, using his fingers to map out the family tree in the air. I told him it was confusing and he giggled.

  “Marigold’s family estate went to her father’s fourth cousin as he had no sons, only Marigold. Primogeniture it’s called. A dreadful thing if you’re a lady, although you certainly won’t have to trouble yourself with anything like that in this land. It’s a blessing, really. Poor Charlie. He had a great weight upon him, being the only son of the Colonel. Now it all falls to Pomeline.” Harry looked away, and it was the first time I’d seen the euphoria wash off his face. Then
I guess he remembered himself, the company, and he looked at Pomeline. “I’m sorry, Pommie. Of course he loved you and your sister so dreadfully much.”

  She looked away and fiddled with the brim of her enormous sun hat.

  “It’s a great deal of pressure, isn’t it, Pomeline, dear child, being the eldest in a grand family? I became a scientist, you see, because I wanted to be useful. I wanted to make a contribution. I don’t know if many in my family make much of a meaningful contribution.”

  “Things are a bit different here, Harry. I’ve got my mother wanting to get rid of the place and Granny insisting that I keep Petal’s End going, and Jenny saying it should be hers because I’ll just go and move away. Once she comes out she’ll run around and do as she pleases and Mother will make excuses for her and Granny will agree.” Pomeline leaned back and her arms fell to her lap, two white, lifeless ribbons dangling by her knees.

  Harry took a sip of the iced tea. “It’s all about learning to get along, and how to please those we love. We are tremendously honoured you’ve seen fit to take breaks from your piano to indulge us, aren’t we, Sakura? What a splendid girl you are. It’s rather magical playing music. It’s like bringing those composers back to life, isn’t it?”

  “I do feel as though they are with me. I can hear the music even when I’m not playing.”

  Sakura didn’t look up from her sketching as she spoke. “I feel the same way about flowers. Even when I’m not drawing them I can see them behind my eyes.”