“I suppose I shall have to do that myself. But how difficult can all the rest of it be? If you were able to do them for all those years, then . . .”
I felt my mouth drop open. Even now after eight years, if I wasn’t very careful, if I wasn’t extremely diligent, everything was liable to come crashing down upon our heads. “If that’s the way you feel, then I suppose you’ll be happy to be rid of me.”
It would serve him right if Mr. Trimble bumbled it all.
“The Admiral said most girls your age are engaged by now, if not married. I honestly didn’t realize you are as old as you are. I can’t think how . . .” He let out a great long sigh. “I ought to have let you go years ago.” He gave me a keen-eyed glance. “How did you get to be so old? And why haven’t I noticed before now?”
He hadn’t noticed much of anything, not for a long time, after my mother had died. But what point was there in recalling to him such misery? I held another branch for him and helped him over a fallen log.
“You’re certain you’d rather have him than me?”
“Of course I am. Consider yourself freed of all your responsibilities. You shouldn’t give us a second thought.”
I shouldn’t? Well then, I wouldn’t. I’d let them muddle about on their own for a while. And when the first bill went unpaid, and his correspondents’ specimens stopped being delivered, and that bucket on the stair overflowed, it wouldn’t take long for Father to show Mr. Trimble the door and beg me to return.
We found a few good specimens of lace-capped ground elder and rust-colored Achillea, and then, with the sun fully risen and carriages and carts already raising dust along the road, we made our way back to the house. As we turned from the road, onto our lane, Father suddenly stopped, raising his walking stick and pointing it up into the air.
“What do you think that young fellow is doing up there?”
“Up where?” I followed the direction of his stick and was astonished to see Mr. Trimble bending over the pitch of the roof. “I’m sure I have no idea.”
Father cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted up at the man.
Mr. Trimble stood and lifted a hand in reply, though he did not speak until we drew nearer. “I think I’ve found the leak.”
“The what?” Father glanced at me, puzzlement turning his brow.
“The leak. The one that’s come down through the roof to rot that stair.”
“Oh. Oh! Carry on, then.” Father kicked at the front stoop to knock the dirt off his boots and then went on into the house.
A call from Mr. Trimble wafted down to me. “Miss Withersby?”
I walked back into the yard so that I could see him.
“There you are! Do you know, have you got a hammer? Can you ask the boy to bring it?”
“We haven’t got a boy.” We had me.
“Well then, do you know if you’ve got a hammer?”
“I have no idea.”
“Your roof has rotted to a great extent, although someone’s put a row of buckets in the attic just below here to catch the worst of it.”
That had been me. I’d done it when we had first moved in. It was quite enormous, that gaping hole in the roof. “Do we need to find some more buckets, then? Is that what you’re saying?”
“No. I’m saying, why don’t you fix it?”
“Me? I suppose I’d need some more wood and a large amount of nails for that, Mr. Trimble.” And seeing as how I didn’t have them, pails seemed to work well enough. Shaking my head, I finished scraping my boots and then went inside.
Mr. Trimble soon came in as well, though he must have done it through an upstairs window, for he did not come in the front door. “That hole in the roof really should be patched.”
Father was shuffling through my illustrations, and now he looked up. “Do you think so? Those pails seem to have worked well enough.”
“If you don’t patch it, it will just get worse.”
He’d already returned his attention to my illustrations. “I suppose it will. . . .”
“It’s generally preferable to repair these sorts of things right away. And there’s no telling when we’ll be in for a rain. It would probably be worth the time and trouble to do it today.”
If one didn’t know better, one might think my father was Mr. Trimble’s assistant. I wondered if all sheep farmers were so overbearing.
But Father was nodding. “Of course, you’re right. By all means, do what you must.”
“I’ll just . . . I’ll go look to see if you’ve got a hammer anywhere about.”
Not long after Mr. Trimble disappeared, the sound of pounding rose from the roof. And before long, it descended into the stairs.
I put down my paints and went to find him. “Could you stop that beating about?”
He set his hammer down and looked up at me. “I’m replacing your rotting stair.”
“Could you do it more quietly?”
“No. I’m afraid it would be quite impossible to use a hammer without hammering.”
I returned to my illustration, determined to ignore him. I did wish I could remember all those things that I had divulged about my research and hopes for publishing papers. It was one thing to take advantage of our correspondence to convey my secret hopes, knowing that I would never have to meet the man. But it was another thing entirely to have him take up residence in my house.
Late that afternoon, Mr. Trimble set a stack of pails at my feet with a great flourish.
I shoved them aside with my foot as I finished the coloring of a petal. “What are those for?”
“They’re your pails. There’s no need for them anymore in the attic, or on the stair, so I’m returning them. The roof is repaired.”
As I thanked him, Father called across the room. “You say you’ve done the roof?”
“I have. It was very—”
“Then come right over here. We’ve still got time to speak of that memoir on lilies I’m to write.”
As they were consulting, I heard Mrs. Harvey drop our supper onto the dining room table. I did wish she would warn us so that we could move things out of the way. Going into the dining room, I set the food on the floor, gathered the specimen sheets and put them atop the others that rested on the burled-wood sideboard. Then I took Mother’s china plates from the shelves and passed them about, saving for myself the one decorated with a bouquet of strawberries and buttercups. Only, Mr. Trimble sat down in front of it.
With a frown, I switched my buttercups for his tulips. “Watch your foot!”
He seemed startled to observe a serving bowl sitting beside his chair, but at least he picked it up for me and put it on the table.
We sat down together, the three of us. Father blessed the food. I picked up a biscuit and dunked it into my tea.
Mr. Trimble did the same and then gnawed at a corner. “This tastes remarkably similar to the meal Mrs. . . . What did you say her name was?”
“Harvey.”
“—to the meal Mrs. Harvey served us last night.”
“There’s not much variety to her meals—it’s true—but I’ve always supposed that sailors must not care very much what they eat.”
“Not having a choice is different than not caring.”
Upon reflection, I agreed that it was. I dipped my biscuit into my tea again. “She does cook us a roast for Christmas.” At least she had done the previous year.
We ate in silence for several minutes before Father spoke. “You should give the notes regarding your work on Ranunculaceae to this young man, Charlotte.”
“Why?”
“So that he can finish the study for you and write it up.”
But it was my work. It had been my work for nearly a year. And if he read my notes, then he’d recognize my handwriting! “Why shouldn’t I be the one to finish it?”
“Because you’re to marry soon. You’ve put so much work into it, it would be a shame for all your effort to go to waste.”
“If the choice is between finding a husband
or continuing my work, then I must say I’d rather—”
“Are you familiar with Ranunculaceae, Mr. Trimble?”
Why were neither of them listening to me?
“I know what they are.”
Know what they—! Clearly, I had let this plan of theirs progress too far. “Have you done any extensive studies on the Ranunculaceae family, Mr. Trimble?”
“I know what buttercups look like.”
“Buttercups are only one member of a family that numbers over one thousand species.” I sent a look of protest toward my father. “And are you proficient with use of the compound microscope?”
“I’ve used a single lens. Does a compound microscope have two of them?”
I appealed to my father. “It’s impossible for him to do it. I’ll just have to complete the work myself.” And that way, I could avoid giving him access to my notes and he would never realize that it was me, and not my father, with whom he had corresponded.
“We can discuss it later.” Father’s face brightened. “I was going to ask you, Charlotte, if you’ve heard back from the Botanical Society of London about the letter I submitted to the editor.”
“I believe I did. I received something in the post just the other day.” I’d put it where I always put Father’s letters, even though he never remembered where that was. I had to practically place his mail into his hands, and even then I had to watch where he set it down to make sure I could later retrieve it. “I’m sure Mr. Trimble will be happy to assist you in finding it.”
Mr. Trimble was already protesting. “I really don’t know if—”
“Because that’s what assistants do. They assist.” If they were determined to push me out of my research, then I was determined not to help them in any way. I’d finished my biscuit and eaten as much salt pork as I intended to, so I pushed my plate away and rose.
Mr. Trimble stood as well. Not for the first time, I wished he were the Mr. Trimble of my imaginings. That way he wouldn’t be so . . . present. Or intimidating. He would be entirely manageable. “I’ll leave you to your work, then.”
Father held up a finger. “Before you retire, Charlotte, I was hoping you could—”
“I’m sure Mr. Trimble will help you with whatever you need.”
I went into the parlor and gathered my papers from my desk, as well as the illustrations I had been working on, before going upstairs. I nudged open the door to my room with a shoulder. Once there, I took my books from their shelf and stacked them on the floor. Then I replaced them with my illustrations. My mother’s children’s books kept their place of honor atop my chest of drawers.
Emptying out a hatbox, I shoved my papers into it and pushed it under my bed, knowing it would not be long before I could work on them again. The couple days I would have to spend waiting for Father to realize his mistake should enable me to take up my work once more with a renewed vigor.
4
I got up at half past five the next morning, dressed, and went downstairs—only to realize that I no longer had to. Assisting father on his rambles wasn’t my responsibility anymore. And neither was doling out cold tea or praying Mrs. Harvey had remembered to leave out something for breakfast. Since I was up and awake, however, I determined to put the time to good use. I started writing up my notes on those suspicious yellow flowers Mr. Trimble had sent but soon remembered I ought not be doing that either. So I began writing a letter to our publisher, proposing that I write on something other than wax flowers, because really, I couldn’t conceive of how to create one. But then I stopped midsentence. This, too, was something Mr. Trimble would now be doing. I stood and moved toward my father’s study but halted halfway, walked toward the bookshelf but then gave it up. Finally I sat down again and wondered what there was to do if I wasn’t supposed to be assisting my father.
I’d never done anything else.
The sun rose, and a ray of light illuminated the desks and shelves and floors with their fuzzy coatings of dust. I could do some dusting . . . but wouldn’t that better fall under the jurisdiction of father’s assistant?
If I read the latest issue of Magazine of Natural History, it couldn’t quite be called assisting could it? It wasn’t truly pertinent to anything I was currently working on. As I settled myself into a chair, there came the sound of footsteps on the floor above, and soon Mr. Trimble appeared. Was he . . . was he just now waking? “If you’re here, then who is with my father?”
“I don’t know. Is he not here?”
I stood. “No, Mr. Withersby, he is not. He’s out there somewhere!” I gestured toward the window. “Out there by himself, wandering around.” I dropped the magazine to the floor and hurried out into the hall. “Really, Mr. Trimble, he’s not as young as he used to be, and he has dreadful rheumatism. I confess that I am disappointed to be put aside in favor of you and much inclined to resentment, but I will not simply stand by and watch my father suffer under your tenure.”
“He seems in perfect health, and I didn’t know that—”
“He’s much inclined to melancholia and distraction. If you don’t look after him and I’m not allowed to look after him, then who will?”
“I had no idea, Miss Withersby. Please, forgive me. I will take the utmost care of him in the future. You can depend upon it.”
“That’s all very well and good, but who is going to take the utmost care of him now, this morning?”
“If you could point me in the right direction, I would be happy to undertake a search for him.”
“There are a thousand right directions for a morning’s ramble. I’ll just have to go find him myself.” I wrenched open the door and started down the lane toward the road. Thankfully, I happened upon Father not long after. “I thought I’d lost you!”
He held up his vasculum. “I found some interesting specimens.”
“You can’t just leave without saying anything!”
He blinked in surprise. “What was there to say? You were sleeping. And besides, I only went on my ramble.”
“By yourself! Anything might have happened.”
“I did just fine.”
“But it’s not safe. You’re not to be left alone, and you’re not to be disturbed by anything. That’s what the doctor said.”
“What doctor?”
“The doctor. After Mother died.”
“After Mother died, I was indeed quite . . . I was quite unlike myself. But really, Charlotte, that was many years ago. I’m fine now.”
I could not keep my chin from trembling. My mother had been fine too, up until the day she wasn’t.
Mr. Trimble met us at the door and helped Father off with his coat. Father went into his study to work, and Mr. Trimble sat himself down at my desk.
I took Father’s vasculum into the parlor and began to sort out the specimens, though I was quite clumsy in the doing of it. It took a while for my hands to stop shaking.
There was nothing to do and no one to speak to. Finally, I took my mother’s Bible across the front hall and into the sitting room, with its mismatched tufted blue chairs, vowing to read it from start to finish. This room wasn’t as cold as the parlor, owing to its thick Turkish carpet and the stacks of papers that lined the windowsills.
The house had gone silent and I ought to have been able to read quite peacefully, but I couldn’t quite get over the idea that something about Mr. Trimble just didn’t make sense. After having read through the same three verses in Leviticus four times, I closed the Bible and went into the parlor. Mr. Trimble looked up and then stood as I entered.
I nodded and he sat. “I wonder, don’t you miss New Zealand and those sheep of yours?”
“I do. Yes.”
“May I ask why you undertook to return to England?”
He lifted a brow as he tilted his head. “There are things one does, not so much because one wishes to but because one must.”
I mirrored his brow lift.
“Promises made must, at some point, become promises kept. I am the victim, Miss
Withersby, of an injudicious past.”
“So you intend to stay here, with us until . . . ?”
“Your father says I’m to stay until you marry. If you wish to be rid of me, might I suggest that the quickest way to do so would be to find a husband?”
I sniffed. There was something odd about his answers to my questions. “If you made a promise that would bring you back to England, then why go to New Zealand at all?” He’d never really said, not in all the time we’d been corresponding.
“Because there were opportunities there in sheep.”
Sheep. Sheep and my imagined Mr. Trimble went quite nicely together. This Mr. Trimble I would have paired much more satisfactorily with a hound or a horse. I could quite easily imagine him joining the season’s hunting-and-stalking crowd from London. “In all truth, I find that idea so completely preposterous—”
“So does my mother. She would much rather I—” He bit off the words so quickly he nearly choked over them.
“Would much rather you what?”
“Nothing.”
“If you have a mother still living, I should think you’d much rather stay with her instead of us.”
“But you don’t know my mother, do you?”
“No.”
“Then I would advise you to reserve your opinion.” He picked up his pen, as if marking an end to the conversation.
“I should think your mother would want you to come home, now that you’re back in England.”
“I assure you, my mother wishes to see me just as much as I wish to see her. If she never knew I have set foot in England, then I would be happy.”
“She doesn’t have anything to do with that promise you made?” It was all so mysterious. “One would think that after . . . How old are you, Mr. Trimble?”
“I’ve four and twenty years.”
“One would think that after so many years you might have figured out how to get along with her.”
“Or she with me?” He smiled, but it was a stretching of the lips more than a sign of pleasure or of mirth. “One would think.”
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