Like a Flower in Bloom

by Siri Mitchell

  Miss Templeton would be so proud of me if I could get him to agree. “And why not? You’ve words enough about what I’m not doing and saying that it seems to me you would fit admirably into such a milieu.”

  “I haven’t been invited.”

  The Admiral waved a hand. “Nothing that a note would not take care of. So it’s set. You’ll provide the escort.”

  “I don’t see how I can, really. There’s too much work to be done.”

  Not so easy to do everything at once, was it? Perhaps they were beginning to understand. I laid a hand on his arm. “I’ll say not one word about your background, Mr. Trimble. And the way you hold yourself, no one will believe you haven’t been born to a family just like theirs.”

  “I can’t go. It wouldn’t be wise.”

  “But if you attend, you can criticize my taste and appalling lack of good manners as we go along instead of afterward. It would be much more efficient that way and save you the trouble of doing it later. I daresay you might even have a good time.”

  Mr. Trimble came upon me in the sitting room the next morning. I was using one of the plant presses as a sort of portable desk. “And what have you there?” He was eying my pen and paper rather suspiciously.

  “I’m just undertaking a bit of correspondence for the rector. Some business with his old parish.”

  “Is he incapable of doing that as well?”

  “As well as what?”

  “As well as managing a simple collection.”

  I laid my pen down. “I don’t see why you should denigrate him so. Do you hold something against him?”

  “Only that he seems to have delegated to you all those tasks he prefers not to do.”

  “If you would bother to listen to him preach on Sundays instead of glancing round the church like a crazed lunatic, you would never dare to insult him again.” I could not say that his suspicions about the collection were unfounded, but Mr. Hopkins-Whyte did not deserve Mr. Trimble’s disdain. “If it wasn’t him, it would be my father delegating tasks to me, wouldn’t it?” Had I just . . . had I just said that?

  “Or that other fellow.”

  Other fellow? “That other fellow’s name is Mr. Stansbury.”

  “And you know vastly more on the subject of flowers than he could ever hope to learn.”

  “I’m sure he’s seen more exotic species than I have. His glasshouse collections are really quite admirable.”

  “And I’ve seen more of New Zealand’s flowers in the field than you have, and still I recognize that I know nothing compared to you.”

  “He has asked me to help him round out his collections.”

  “Does he know that you wrote Ranunculaceae in Britain?”

  “I wouldn’t say that I wrote it. Not exactly.”

  “I would.” He gave me a long look. “You disappoint me.”

  “I disappoint you? I don’t see why you should be so set against my doing what God and nature have apparently ordained me to do.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I’m to be a helper. I believe that’s what Eve was called.”

  “A helper? Is that what you think you’re being? God calls himself our helper too, if I recall, but no one makes Him engage in correspondence or keep track of labels or leave His name off books He’s toiled to write. We ask Him to lend His strength to ours. I don’t think you’re being helpful, Miss Withersby. I think you’re being taken advantage of.”

  “And why should you care what it is that I’m doing with my time? You’ve waltzed in here and taken up my position, so why object to the ways in which I must now occupy myself? Why should it matter to you?”

  “It matters because you’re made of better stuff than this. Believe me, Miss Withersby, I’ve seen much of society, and what passes for obligation most of the time is stuff and nonsense.”

  For a moment, his words shamed me as I remembered the sort of family from which he’d come, and then I became quite exasperated and endeavored to ignore him.

  My vow held until Monday evening when Mr. Trimble appeared in the parlor, dressed for the lecture. It was then that I began to think better of Miss Templeton’s plans. I wasn’t quite sure what had changed, but in evening dress, he made an altogether different impression than he had while working at his desk in his shirt sleeves. Formerly, I would have believed quite willingly that he was a sheep farmer. But in his pleated shirtfront and gloves, he looked every bit a peer of the realm. It was really quite as vexing, as if I had misclassified a colchicum as a crocus.

  He bowed. “Miss Withersby.”

  I curtseyed.

  I was used to seeing him bent over a microscope or sitting at my desk. I had forgotten he was so tall. Or that the scent of him held such intrigue. I still couldn’t place what it was. Maybe I could ask Miss Templeton to take a sniff of him so she could help me to decipher it.

  We travelled to the lecture with nary a word spoken between us, and as we entered the ballroom, he peered around furtively.

  I put a hand to his arm. “Have no fear. As I’ve told you before, the people of Overwich are quite kind.” Excepting the Family Bickwith.

  Miss Templeton introduced him around. I suppose I ought to have done it, but I still hadn’t gotten down who I was to introduce to whom. Whether I was meant to say, for instance, Mrs. Such-and-So, this is Mr. Trimble or if it should be the other way around.

  At the reception after the lecture, I saw Lord Harriwick’s son lounging against the wall opposite. He and his friends normally didn’t have much to do with country folk, as Miss Templeton called us, but he stumbled over, raising a glass in our direction.

  “Hail, Saxon! Haven’t seen you for ages. Not since Eton.” He slapped Mr. Trimble on the back and offered him a drink.

  Mr. Trimble stepped back as I stepped forward. We stood there, together, shoulder to shoulder.

  Miss Templeton smiled and stepped out in front of us both. “You can’t have met him. Mr. Trimble farms sheep in New Zealand. He’s only just come back for a visit.”

  The man leaned around Miss Templeton to peer at Mr. Trimble through narrowed eyes. “Funny. He’s a familiar look about him, but I can’t say I’ve ever visited the colony.” He raised his glass again and seemingly swallowed a belch with a great grimace. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  A strained sort of smile bent Mr. Trimble’s lips. “I suppose you’ll have to.”

  As the man left, Mr. Trimble drew a shaking hand up to his brow.

  Poor man. If he had not usurped my position, I might have felt sorry for him. “I have to say, you look the part of a gentleman, even if you do work for your living.”

  He turned to me with a slight bow. “I would say the same to you.”

  The same to me? That I looked the part of . . . ? “Was that a compliment?” I did quite like the raspberry-colored dress I was wearing. It was woven with blue threads, and the color changed whenever I moved. Miss Hansford had aided me, dressing my hair into ringlets, and I felt that on the whole I fit in with the milieu rather admirably.

  “I think, perhaps, it was.” The look in his eyes seemed to be a kind of peace offering.

  I accepted it with a nod.

  At that moment, Mr. Stansbury approached and greeted me with a bow.

  I curtseyed.

  “You look as pretty as a pansy, this evening, Miss Withersby.”

  Mr. Trimble raised a brow as if to press his point.

  I concentrated all my attentions on Mr. Stansbury. “Thank you, Mr. Stansbury.”

  “Speaking of which, my orchid has bloomed.”

  “And?”

  “And you were right.” He said it with a twinkle in his eye. “I never would have thought to question that label, but I am glad that you did. I was hoping you might come take a look at it and tell me whether—”

  “She’d be delighted to.” Miss Templeton joined our conversation with a smile.

  “Wednesday, then?”

  “It would be our pleasure.”
r />   Mr. Stansbury smiled back at her. Smiled at Mr. Trimble. Smiled at me.

  He was such an interesting man. Most of the other men in the room seemed painted from the same palette of muted greys and browns, but he always displayed a surprising bit of color. Miss Templeton assured me that really should not be done, but I thought it enlivened his ruddy cheeks and set off the gleam of his precisely combed hair.

  Compared to Mr. Trimble, he was positively dazzling, and yet there was something established, something settled, about Mr. Trimble that was lacking in the industrialist. Miss Templeton’s words about the shiniest watches echoed in my thoughts.

  Miss Templeton jabbed me with her elbow and tilted a brow toward Mr. Trimble.

  I raised my own brow in response.

  She smiled at Mr. Stansbury. “May we introduce you to Miss Withersby’s father’s assistant?”

  That’s what I’d forgotten. The introduction. What a pleasure it was to work with flowers. They never begged an introduction from anyone, and if you misidentified them as Mr. Stansbury had, they never took offense and one could still appreciate their beauty.

  Mr. Trimble nodded at me. “I would be delighted to make a new acquaintance.”

  I still couldn’t remember which way introductions went but embarked upon it just the same.

  The two men nodded at each other.

  Mr. Stansbury glanced at me. “Is Admiral Williams not here?”

  “He’s been—”

  Miss Templeton placed a hand to my arm. “He asked Mr. Trimble to escort Miss Withersby this evening.”

  Mr. Stansbury gave him another, longer, look.

  Mr. Trimble smiled.

  Mr. Stansbury did not return it. He gave him a cool glance and then continued in conversation with me. “I received an Italian orchid today from a correspondent. Remind me to show it to you when you visit on Wednesday.”

  “I should very much like to see it.”

  He crooked an arm for me, and I threaded mine through it the way I had seen other women do.

  He walked us off down toward the end of the room, although there seemed to be nothing there worth seeing. “I take such pleasure in your interest, Miss Withersby. Most people would see my passion as a waste of time.”

  “If that’s so, then I’ve wasted my entire life, haven’t I? In any case, I would love to draw your new orchid, if you would allow it.”

  “Why should you bother about such things? I’ll have a sketch made for you, if you would accept the gift.”

  “It would not be a bother.” I could not fault him for his generosity, but I must confess my fingers itched to take up a pen and a brush and try to match the flower’s subtle shadings, to try and capture the essence of a plant I’d never before drawn.

  I turned and saw Mr. Trimble was looking at me as if . . . there must be something, then, that I’d failed to do. Or something I’d done for which I now must apologize. But I could not determine what grievous sin I’d committed. “Forgive me. Thank you.” I hoped that would cover my offense.

  “It would give me pleasure to offer it to you. A woman like you shouldn’t have to draw it herself.”

  Perhaps not. But what if she wanted to?

  Eventually, Mr. Stansbury returned me to Mr. Trimble. After the industrialist had gone, Miss Templeton turned to him. “So what do you think of our Mr. Stansbury?”

  “A self-made man, I believe.”

  “You say it as if it were a slur!”

  “Do I? Then I must amend my tone, for there are some in New Zealand who would call me the same.”

  A smile animated Miss Templeton’s lips. “He seems to have developed a distinct fondness for our Miss Withersby.”

  He slid a look in my direction. “I must agree with you.”

  I wished they wouldn’t speak as if I were not present. “He is very kind. And quite forthright. More so than most, I would say.”

  Miss Templeton arched a brow. “I should think he would do quite nicely, Mr. Trimble, don’t you?” She winked at me behind her fan.

  “Do for what?”

  “Why, for a husband, of course.”

  Mr. Trimble’s eyes were scanning the room. “He might do for some, I suppose, but I hardly think him the man for Miss Withersby.”

  Miss Templeton snapped her fan shut. “Why ever not?”

  “He might do, but would he do very well? That is the better question to ask.”

  What gave him the right to concern himself in my affairs? Whatever Mr. Trimble might have thought of Mr. Stansbury, he could not deny the man was impassioned of flowers. If he mixed up his species from time to time or assigned plants to the wrong genus, could that not be forgiven for his ardor? And if the rector’s collections were somewhat haphazardly put together, might that not be forgotten for the absolute kindness with which he treated everyone? Even the objectionable Mrs. Bickwith?

  Now that I considered it, I really was quite proud to call the men my friends. Or . . . perhaps not friends. Would that be too forward? Maybe they were just acquaintances. But then again, they were supposed by many to be courting me, so friendship could probably be assumed without objection. They were friends. And as such, they deserved my defense. “I would thank you to keep yourself out of it.”

  “But is that not why I’m here? To help with your husband finding?”

  He was involving himself much more in the process than my uncle had. On the whole, I much preferred the Admiral’s presence to his. My uncle didn’t seem to care who I spoke to so long as I was speaking to someone. And that was the goal, was it not? To solicit the interest of someone? Why should I care who that man was? “I can hardly see why it matters to you whom I choose to spend my time with.”

  “Because it pains me, Miss Withersby, to think that years from now, I might be imagining you as some man’s glorified assistant instead of knowing that you’re using that brilliant mind of yours for your own purposes.”

  Miss Templeton looked as if she wanted to rap him on the head with her fan. “I suspect Miss Withersby would thrive wherever she might be. I think you do her an injustice, Mr. Trimble.”

  “I think she does herself an injustice, Miss Templeton. She aims far too low.”

  Miss Templeton’s eyes seemed to darken for a moment and then she put a smile on her face. “Come.” She linked an arm through both of ours, securing herself a place in the middle. “Let’s be friends, shall we? I’ve always loved intellectual stimulation, and I would hate for it to be spoiled by such a sour face as yours, Miss Withersby.”

  She pulled us towards the punch bowl and then left us there as she tipped her head in greeting to someone and started back across the room.

  I crossed my arms. I never knew what to do with them. Nor with my hands. There was nothing normal about holding them naturally when most often I was employing them for some purpose. Upon reflection, perhaps it wasn’t my arms that were the problem. Perhaps it was standing about doing nothing. There was no point to it. I glanced over at Mr. Trimble. “You made it seem, back there, as if you don’t approve of me.”

  “I don’t.”

  “It might interest you to know that I don’t approve of you.”

  He didn’t seem very distraught by my pronouncement. “You’re hardly the first.”

  “I don’t see how you can just go round disapproving of people you don’t even know.”

  “But I do know you.”

  “In just five short weeks, you’ve earned the right to meddle in my affairs? I find that rather presumptuous.”

  “You forget . . . I’ve earned that right over three long years. So the question I must ask myself, and which you should ask yourself too is, why in God’s name would you wish to spend your life as some man’s transcriptionist or secretary when you’ve a mind of your own between those pretty ears of yours?”

  Why did he take my search for a husband as a personal affront? “Because apparently all the research I’ve done, all those papers I’ve written hold no value. Why else would my father offer
me up to the general population like some ceremonial lamb?”

  “Perhaps because he feels it is his duty. Perhaps because he wishes to see you happy. Are you happy, Miss Withersby?”

  Happy? How dare he ask me that! “Only a man who has forced himself into my family and then usurped my position would think to ask me that.”

  “Because if you aren’t—”

  “Make no mistake about it, Mr. Trimble. My first responsibility is to my father’s work.”

  “And what of your own work?”

  “My work? I’ve already told you. No one in a position to judge seems to think that my work matters.”

  “I think it matters.”

  “And who are you? Do you sit on the board of the BAAS? Are you in a position to decide which papers to publish?”

  He said nothing.

  “I thank you for your concern, but I’m very nearly beginning to think none of it matters.” The more I pretended an interest in marriage, the more trapped by my efforts I had become. I wasn’t thinking of papers or books anymore. I was thinking of dinner parties and dances. “Perhaps a marriage to a regular, unphilosophical man is best. It’s worked for so many others. And as the Admiral says, it’s what I was made for.”

  But if that was true, then why did the thought of that very thing make me want to cry?

  21

  One would have thought I had earned a several day reprieve from social obligations, but Mr. Stansbury’s orchids awaited.

  After that visit, however, I had one glorious day to lose myself in the doing of nothing in particular. After that I was subjected to a series of card parties and a round of calls—and then the morning of the rowing party dawned. At least it began early in the day. I was hoping that meant I would be able to spend a pleasant evening at home.

  Down at the river’s edge, there were boats for rowing and pony carts for the children. Rugs had been laid out along the riverbank, and sofas and chairs had been arranged atop them. Mr. Trimble proved himself to be an able and attentive escort. Too attentive, perhaps.

  “Is there something wrong, Mr. Trimble? You’ve been staring at me for nearly an hour.”

  “I apologize. I was just trying to determine . . . There’s something . . . about the way you walk.”