She seemed stuck on the swan’s neck, the biggest one. “That’s Sweet William,” I told her, “Jenny’s favourite. He’s the same age as us. Swans can live for a long time. There’s nothing sweet about William, though. Keep your distance. Swans don’t like change and they don’t like people. It’s their pond, Jenny says, and she don’t mind who they scare.”
Harry chortled. “Now Fancy, you seem to know about the swans and the flowers here. Do you know much about the flora and fauna in these woods?”
“Well, lots of it grows in there.”
Harry started guffawing again. “I took a walk to where you lived with your grandfather. It’s a charming stroll. And a charming cottage. I would love to see inside. Loretta tells me he was a terrific painter. That’s a very useful occupation, you see. There are so many things you can do as a painter. Your grandfather was a war artist, I hear. What gruesome images they were charged with capturing. But Loretta tells me he then devoted himself to vernacular portraiture. Loretta said he did paintings for families when their loved ones died. That’s a wonderful gift, a visual memorial. But there are also artists like Sakura who capture flowers. And Marigold showed me your needlework piece. It’s really quite exquisite, almost from another time, such precision. You embroider just as Pomeline plays the piano, luminously. Or, as they would say in ‘Rappaccini’s Daughter,’ luminoso! It was such a curious little picture, Marigold resting, with her eyes like that.”
“The stitching is exquisite,” Sakura offered.
Pomeline yawned, already worn out from the heat that had tiptoed into the morning. “I must get back to the house now to practise. Granny’s got the party planners coming again this afternoon.”
Harry said, “Well, I would be pleased to help. You have but to ask, dear Pomeline.”
They had a brief hug, hardly touching, and Pomeline went off, her dress fluttering as she walked. She disappeared behind a wall of flowers taller than she was.
I gathered up the tray and Art stood. I had forgotten he was there. I hadn’t seen Art much in the past two weeks because when he wasn’t with the gardeners he was following Harry around, trying to soak up his knowledge. “I better get back and find the gardeners,” he said. “We’re finishing pruning the hedge maze.”
“I’ve driven you all off with my reading.” Harry laughed, clutching the book.
“What happens in the story?” Art asked.
Harry wrinkled his nose. “Well, it’s very gruesome. I suppose I haven’t shown good judgment. But then I did like the dark tales when I was a lad. You see”—Harry’s voice got low and we all leaned forward—“it’s an experiment he runs, this scientist, raising his child in a poisoned garden, and she becomes immune to the poison from continual exposure. She is habituated to it. But the tragedy of it is that she becomes just as poisonous as the flowers. All her loveliness is deadly. And there’s no cure. In fact, the antidote is what destroys her—the truth, I suppose, of what she has become, and how she can never escape it, through no fault of her own. It’s not really a story for children.”
“Jenny would like it. She’s suspicious of flowers.”
Harry perked up. “Is she afraid of them? What they represent?”
“Maybe. Jenny don’t like it when her grandmother fills the big house up with cut flowers. She says it makes it like living in a funeral home or a hospital. She likes them fine growing out here, alive in the ground. She says the flowers don’t appreciate being murdered. Her grandmother don’t understand it.”
“She certainly is quite a character, our young Jenny.”
Sweet William let out a horrible cackling thrum and Sakura cringed.
Harry pointed. “Such a magnificent bird to look at but they really aren’t friendly at all. I don’t know what they were thinking getting a young girl swans as pets. I see they have cygnets. They even chase those off once they get to a certain age. Such a temperamental creature.”
“He don’t like us talking about Jenny.”
Harry cocked his head and looked at me. “Is that so, Fancy? Now, however would you know that?”
Art was looking at me funny. It had just come out of my mouth. But I knew it was true. That swan knew her name.
Sweet William began to gurgle and hiss and paddle along, watching as we walked by the edge of the pond and up the path back to the house.
Loretta sent me right back out to cut some roses Marigold wanted now they were in high season. I snipped them as fast as I could and came back into the tempered air of the big manor home, setting the flowers down in the kitchen. Down the corridor from the back of the house I could hear the piano music. It was not a tune Pomeline had played before. I went and stood in the doorway listening and she lifted her eyes from the keyboard, still playing, talking over the music.
“I don’t remember a summer this sweltering, Fancy. You’ll be here for choir practice? You have a pretty voice, you know.” She gazed down at the keyboard and her hair fell around her. She was drained of colour, almost the same white as the ivory her fingers were touching.
“Everything okay?” It surprised me when the words came out of my mouth.
Pomeline stared at the keyboard for a long moment, and finally she started playing again, lifting her huge luminous eyes. Maybe she was dead. I did think that. Maybe she was the dead come to fetch me. Maybe this was how it was going to be for me. I’d see the dead doing what they did but they wouldn’t be alive and no one would know but me. They wouldn’t join me for a cup of tea like they did Grampie, or go for a stroll as they did with my great-grandfather. They’d be around forever doing what they did and I could never escape them. I stood there staring at her, waiting for the rest of her to just fade away with the music, for her to become as translucent as the white sheers on the long windows.
There was a tap on my shoulder and I screamed so loud Pomeline’s hands crashed on the keys.
“Fancy! I didn’t mean to startle you.” Dr. Baker took me by the shoulders as Margaret come running down the stairs and dashed into the room and Loretta rushed in from the kitchen. “Now, now, nothing to worry about. I interrupted the ladies here, gave them a scare. I have to go over a few items with our young virtuoso,” he said, holding up a list written in Marigold’s spidery script. He patted me on the back and stepped into the hall.
Margaret snarled and ran back up the stairs, calling behind her, “Mrs. Parker is expecting the party planning ladies any minute. You scared her half to death, Fancy, screeching like that. ‘It isn’t civilized to make such a noise under any circumstances.’ That’s what Marigold said.”
Dr. Baker cleared his throat. “Of course. Margaret, let her know all is well. The heat has put everybody on edge.”
Loretta brushed her hands off on her apron and I watched her bustle off down the hall on the way back to the kitchen. “Come along, Fancy,” she called. “You can help get lunch ready. Come be civilized in the kitchen. Putting your shoes on would be a fine start.” She clopped over the wooden floor, the sound fading into the back of the house.
I turned then to Dr. Baker, but he was gone too and the music room door was closed. I could hear his and Pomeline’s hushed voices. I took a few steps toward the door and rested my ear on the wood, my hand on the doorknob. I could hear a faint noise and I couldn’t tell what it was. And just as I’d known Sweet William was watching us, I turned and there was Margaret standing at the top of the landing watching me, both of us in our ridiculous maid outfits, with a quiet satisfaction.
11.
The Second Coming
THE MIST had blown away and left behind a clear sky and crisp, perfumed air. The heat would creep back as the afternoon hours passed. The event planners were gone and it was quiet again.
Marigold had on a big sun hat and her gardening outfit: a floral skirt, a white blouse and a long smock of an apron. “Well, we’ll head off then, shall we, to Evermore? I’ll teach you my secrets, my darlings. I’m a bit rusty.” She was on Margaret’s arm, talking to Harry and Sakura. Margaret
was holding a silk parasol to keep the sun off Marigold, and Pomeline carried a dull coral one. It had probably been bright red once but by the time it found Pomeline’s long white fingers it was faded.
“Pommie, did you try to call your mother again? Or Dr. Baker? It’s time they brought Agatha out to Petal’s End. It’s absurd, keeping a young girl trapped in the city at the height of summer. You said you’d call, darling, you promised your old Granny.”
Pomeline was walking slowly, with her hand on her stomach, like all the activities were wearing on her. “Yes, Granny, I did call, I really did. I couldn’t reach anybody. I told you that. I’ll try again after dinner.”
“We’ve got everything ready in the Water House, Marigold.” Harry came and walked beside her. “Has anyone seen Hector? Loretta was looking for him. I said I’d send him along if I saw him but he’s nowhere to be found. That fellow seems to constantly be on the go, doesn’t he, Fancy?” I shrugged, and Harry turned his attention back to Marigold, talking about lady’s slippers, orchids and trilliums and other flowers of the forest.
Marigold’s cane clicked on the stone path. “What a joyful help you are, Cousin. The two of you are just so dear. You really should stay. You can live here. You would die for the cherry blossoms, Sakura. The trees are planted in a heart shape. Did you see?”
We made our way toward the garden but didn’t get more than a few steps when we heard a rumbling coming from the wooded lane. A white car emerged, with Estelle at the wheel, enormous sunglasses on, and Jenny in the passenger seat beside her, looking straight ahead like she was gazing through the landscapes of time.
We watched the car pull up to the big steps. Marigold started laughing and clapping her hands, the stiff side of her face twitching. “Well, look who has decided to join us. What a delight.” She took to waving like she was at a parade. “Pomeline, I thought you said you didn’t reach them!”
“I didn’t, Granny.”
Just then Hector came out of woods in his pickup truck. He parked it right behind the white car and got out, but Estelle didn’t need no man opening the door. She stepped out, the engine still running, and gestured to Jenny to get out, at the same time directing Hector to get the bags from the trunk.
Estelle rapped on the car window so hard it wouldn’t have surprised me if it broke, but Jenny kept looking ahead. She knocked again and Jenny put the window down. She turned and looked at her mother. “I’m praying,” a low, deep voice said.
Margaret turned her head and stared at the car. She wasn’t expecting that. No one ever was.
“Pray later, dear. Now get out of the car and say hello to your grandmother and sister and your cousins.” Estelle was tapping her foot.
Jenny turned her head to us, and her grandmother waved again and out she came. She had on an ill-fitting white dress and flat white leather sandals, a white kerchief on her head. She clasped her hands in front of her and ran over the stones to her grandmother, if you could call it running. It was more like a stiff shuffle, on account of her bones being fine and thin. Her mother called after her to be careful but Marigold held her arms out wide, still carrying her cane, and Jenny forgot all about her prayers. “Oh, Granny,” she said, her voice rumbling out, “I missed you so.”
Harry and Sakura and Margaret were all staring. It was one thing to hear the voice from inside a car but then to hear it coming out of this wispy little creature, that was another thing entirely, something you never got quite used to. You couldn’t help but gawk. Art and I were too. She was an odd-looking girl. If Pomeline was the beautiful version of Estelle, Jenny was the crooked version of her father. Her hair was fine like a baby’s, sticking out of the kerchief and hanging down her back, not quite blond or gold or white. And she had a noticeable skip in her step that seemed almost like a limp.
“Agatha … my darling, darling girl.” Marigold hugged her. She took a step back. “Why, you look simply marvellous.”
Jenny reached for her grandmother’s hand and she swivelled her head around for the view. “I’ve got a home in glory land that outshines the sun,” she said.
Marigold patted her on the head. “Why yes you do, darling.”
Estelle smiled and it came off as a twitch in her right eye. “Marigold, it’s wonderful to see you looking so well.”
Looking back, it’s not unfair to believe that Estelle was, in her own rigid way, wanting things to somehow work out smoothly. I remember the stiff hug she gave Pomeline.
“Pomeline, you look tired. Dr. Baker tells me you’re spending too much time inside.” It was hurting Estelle to keep up the happy look, almost giving her one of her migraines, but she forged ahead, looking around at the property, pretending to admire how grand it all was.
We, the help, stood there while the Parkers got lost in a buzz of greetings with Harry and Sakura, the sun beating down, a few crickets chirping. Jenny turned and batted her eyes at us. She bowed her head and put her hands together. “The holly and the ivy,” she said.
Margaret looked off where there was ivy running up the side of the house, next to the climbing roses, and then back at me.
“The holly bears a prickle, as sharp as any thorn.” Jenny’s head was still bowed and her sister heard her now. Pomeline groaned.
Harry leaned in. “Pardon me?”
“Jenny, now let’s not start this.” Pomeline shook her head.
“Of all the trees that are in the wood the holly bears the crown,” Jenny mumbled.
“Meet Margaret, Granny’s helper,” Pomeline said.
Margaret smiled. That was a mistake.
Jenny pointed to the car. “Take my bags upstairs, please, Margaret.” She folded her hands back together.
Margaret’s eyes narrowed.
Jenny lifted her head to the sky and it seemed there were words only she could see. Finally, she looked at her grandmother. “And I’m here now, so Granny won’t be needing you any more. I always take care of Granny. Since my father died she’s had to rely on me. I do her makeup.”
“There’s certainly enough work looking after a moth-eaten lady like me, darling. You’ll be glad to have Margaret here to give you play time with Arthur and Fancy. Margaret’s not a bellhop, darling. Don’t be rude. It’s so common. Really. And—”
Estelle interrupted. “Jenny, remember your manners, angel. Show how well brought up you are, won’t you? Hector has already taken your bags inside. Jenny was making my life a nightmare because I thought it better for her in the city and she didn’t agree. Here you are, Jenny, I hope you are happy. Now you can play with Arthur and Fancy. But do take care. You must always, always mind your health. Make sure you wash your hands and use your puffer. I don’t know why you refuse to do so.”
“It’s full of chemicals. I’d rather wheeze.”
Art looked at me and I tried not to laugh.
Jenny made an appalling face in Margaret’s direction. “It came upon a midnight clear,” she said.
“All right then, Agatha. We’ll have time to discuss religion later. My, the air is heavy and thick, not a breeze. We’re off to the Water House to make rosewater. Will you join us? Cousin Harry and Sakura have been the most splendid company. You should see Sakura’s brilliant flower sketches.”
Sakura wasn’t much taller than Jenny was. She took to Sakura right away.
“You can teach me about the flowers, Jenny.” Sakura took her arm.
Marigold caressed Jenny’s head. “Remember our special song, Jenny? About the coral bells and lily of the valley? You always have loved the naughty flowers. It’s too bad we’ve missed the lily of the valley. I am thrilled you still use your perfume. It’s so precious but so toxic. I worried you might drink it when you were a toddler.”
Estelle brushed her hands together. “I don’t mean to be rude but I’ve got to get back.”
Marigold brought her dry palms together with a papery clap. “Yes, no doubt you have much more important things to do. You’ll be joining us for the garden party? It’s in two weeks. Can y
ou believe it’s August? Time does fly, doesn’t it, Estelle? It seems no time at all since the summer you married Charlie.” It was just a statement, but it hung there in the air like something rotting. “You remember how much he relished the reception, the dancing and singing, the paper lanterns on the lily pond and hanging from the trees, lighting up the whole of Evermore? He loved that so.”
“Yes, of course, I remember. I remember how much fun you had planning the wedding and reception. And our honeymoon.” Estelle’s voice was thin as a wire. “David—Dr. Baker—tells me the choir is enchanting, although he says you have them singing the most morose songs. No surprise there. But never mind … he says your little crew of servants are dandy singers. Just like before, except you had a choir of soldiers. It’s funny how time passes.” For a moment, even with them big sunglasses on, Estelle seemed to relax as she stood there across from the rest of us, the car behind her still running. She took out a cigarette and lit it, the harsh smell cutting through the fragrant air. “I’m serious, Jenny, do take care and don’t get dirty, and stay out of the sun. And wash your hands if you touch those filthy swans. And Pomeline, make sure your sister does not wear herself out. She needs to go to bed early and do her exercises. You know the routine.”
Pomeline coughed in what seemed to be assent. “Dr. Baker says Granny’s doing very well, Mother. He says Jenny’s fine as well.”
“Well, that’s lovely, Pomeline, but Dr. Baker doesn’t know everything, and there’s nothing wrong with you keeping an eye on your little sister.”
Estelle stared at Pomeline and Pomeline stared back, her face stained pink from the parasol. She held her mother’s gaze until Estelle got in her car and drove away, like she’d never even stopped and got out of the car at all, like we all just blinked and Jenny had appeared.
12.
The Water House
I STILL HAVE not had a glimpse of you. Have you heard the glass wind bells? I hung them there at the edge of the verandah in early June. They tinkled a while ago and I thought you might have been playing with them.
The Memento Page 16