The Botanist’s Daughter

by Kayte Nunn

Elizabeth turned to look for Daisy, who had stepped down from the carriage and was gazing around in wonder at all the activity. The maid gave her a broad grin – it looked like she was beginning to be as caught up in the thrill just as Elizabeth was.

  It was past midday; they had breakfasted simply and early on bread and tea, and now Elizabeth was starving. She was anxious to board and make her way to the dining saloon where, she had been informed, there would be refreshments waiting. ‘Come on then Daisy. We’d best be getting on.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Daisy replied, looking suddenly bereft. Elizabeth, too, felt a pang of loss amid the anticipation. They were both leaving behind all that was familiar. Though Elizabeth had bade Georgiana and Robert farewell two mornings before, Daisy was now faced with a final goodbye to her eldest brother, and she hugged him fiercely, tears dampening his waistcoat. ‘Now then, Daisy, don’t carry on so,’ he scolded her gently. ‘You’re off on a grand adventure – seeing the world! We’ll be seeing your cheeky face afore long, don’t ye worry. And hearing all your tall tales of life on the high seas.’

  ‘I know. Forgive me, brother,’ she sniffed, relinquishing her hold on him and squaring her shoulders. ‘I shall be fine. And I shall try not to miss you all too much.’

  ‘Come on now, Daisy,’ said Elizabeth impatiently, hunger getting the better of her. ‘Dry those tears and let’s begin.’

  ‘Godspeed,’ Helyer called after them. Elizabeth could hear the envy in his words.

  As they ascended the gangway, her stomach lurched. She was about to sail halfway around the world in search of a deathly poisonous plant. With Daisy following close behind, Elizabeth didn’t allow her steps to falter. It was too late to back out now.

  There were only a handful of passengers aboard the Corcovado, as she was predominantly a cargo ship, taking mail and china to Valparaiso via Bordeaux, Lisbon and Rio de Janiero and then returning with sugar, cocoa and textiles. The ship’s saloon was low-ceilinged and compact, containing a long wooden table that ran the length of the room, flanked on both sides by a row of rounded chairs that were bolted to the floor. Elizabeth discovered this as she tried to pull one out to sit down. ‘Oof!’ she cried, unable to budge it.

  ‘Here, ma’am. I think this might help.’ Daisy had deftly twisted the chair to one side so Elizabeth was able to sit.

  ‘Oh. Thank you, Daisy,’ she said, red-faced as she realised her mistake.

  A plate of buttered bread had been laid out on a sideboard, together with a fruitcake, and a large teapot stood next to it, resting on a metal trivet.

  ‘Shall I pour, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes please, Daisy. And for yourself. Now we are aboard, I think we might perhaps relax the normal rules, don’t you agree?’

  Daisy looked at her blankly.

  ‘There are no separate servants’ quarters and so we will eat together. You will also have plenty of time to yourself, as I will need little assistance while we are at sea.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’

  ‘And so I think we can dispense with “ma’am” and “miss”, can’t we, Daisy? When we were girls and played together, we were Daisy and Lizzie, and so I think for this journey we should be that to each other again. What do you say?’

  ‘Yes ma— Of course, Miss Lizzie.’

  ‘Come on, Daisy, you can do better than that,’ Elizabeth commanded.

  ‘Yes, Lizzie,’ Daisy replied obediently, giving her mistress a tentative half-smile.

  And with that small matter settled, they turned themselves to the important business of eating. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, it was to be the last meal for many a week that she was able to enjoy.

  They had been at sea for less than twenty-four hours when she was struck down. The following day, she and Daisy had partaken of a solid luncheon of boiled beef stew – tolerable enough, thought Elizabeth, stirring the gravy with her spoon, though it could have done with more salt – and steamed plum duff. After the meal, Elizabeth had retired to her cabin. ‘I didn’t sleep at all well last night, and I think a nap might help me shake off this tiredness, Daisy,’ she said.

  ‘Of course,’ replied Daisy. ‘Do you need me to come and help you undress?’

  Elizabeth waved her away. ‘I think I might manage to loosen my own stays.’

  ‘Of course. Then I think I shall remain on deck; the fresh air pleases me.’

  Lulled by the thrum of the ship’s engines – they were to run on steam while there was no wind, but sail otherwise – Elizabeth was asleep in an instant, despite the narrow bunk with its thin mattress that passed for a bed.

  When she awoke the cabin was dim, very little light coming in from the small porthole, and the ship was rolling from side to side. Elizabeth’s travelling bible, which she had placed by her bedside, had been flung across the room and her sunbonnet was on the floor beside it. Her stomach roiled, matching the swell of the ship and she clutched her hand over her mouth. ‘Oh, heavens above,’ she muttered to herself as she raised her head off the bed. There was a jug affixed to the nightstand and she only just managed to reach it in time as a violent stream of vomit heaved up from her stomach and splattered into it and onto the floor. After a series of lesser heaves that left her trembling all over, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and staggered to her feet.

  When eventually she was certain that there was no more left in her to expel, she left the cabin, which now reeked of the sour stink of her stomach contents, and went in search of Daisy, clinging to the corridor as she staggered towards the open deck.

  The maid’s flame-coloured hair was like a beacon and Elizabeth spotted her at the far end of the ship. She hurried towards her, grasping the ship’s railing for dear life as it lurched and rolled on the messy ocean. ‘Oh Daisy!’ she cried as she reached her. The wind whipped her hair about her face and carried her words away.

  ‘Elizabeth, isn’t it something! Look at the sea. It’s so vast! There’s no end to it!’ She seemed positively exhilarated.

  Daisy looked more closely at Elizabeth and noticed her green-tinged pallor.

  ‘Oh, Miss, what is wrong? Is it the seasickness? They did warn us of it.’

  Elizabeth nodded dumbly, feeling hopeless and feeble, too nauseous even to be disappointed in herself for succumbing to such a triviality. She was supposed to be an intrepid traveller and here she was falling at the first hurdle. She groaned aloud and Daisy took her arm. ‘Stay out here for as long as you can bear it. Being below decks is the worst thing for seasickness, so Mr Williamson was telling me.’

  ‘Mr Williamson?’ Despite her fragile state, Elizabeth was curious.

  ‘He and the other gentleman, Mr Windsor, were out here earlier.’

  Elizabeth noticed a faint blush colour Daisy’s cheeks.

  ‘They had plenty of advice to impart about life aboard ship. This is their fourth such journey together.’

  ‘So, they are old hands,’ replied Elizabeth through gritted teeth. She had seen the two gentlemen at dinner the previous evening. There had been sixteen of them in total in the saloon: a family with three children who looked to be aged between twelve and four, together with their maid and manservant, who, in the absence of separate dining quarters, sat at the far end of the table; two other couples, and the two gentlemen, the captain, and Elizabeth and Daisy made up the rest of the party. In light of their new agreement, Elizabeth had insisted that Daisy sat next to her.

  ‘Indeed. It seems that they have travelled quite extensively. The Sandwich Islands – wherever they are – Australia and the Americas. They export goods across the globe and have particular interest in the nitrate market in Chile, though I confess I am not certain exactly what nitrates are.’

  ‘Impressive in any case,’ Elizabeth muttered. ‘But for now, Daisy, I worry that I shall be indisposed for the entire voyage.’ Her heart sank at the thought of spending several months in such dire straits. She couldn’t imagine ever feeling well again, her stomach churned so.

  ‘There, there. Don’t fret
now,’ said Daisy, comforting her. ‘You’ll get your sea legs soon enough.’

  ‘I’m afraid my cabin is none too clean,’ she apologised.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ said Daisy, catching her meaning. ‘I will have it right as rain for you in no time. Though I think you should try to stay outside for as long as possible. At least until dinner is served.’

  At the mention of dinner, Elizabeth’s stomach gave another almighty heave and she hurled herself towards the railing, retching bile out into the choppy grey water.

  Daisy placed a hand on her mistress’s back and rubbed it gently in a circular motion. ‘There, there,’ she soothed again. ‘’T’will ease off soon.’

  Elizabeth wanted desperately to believe her.

  Chapter Twelve

  SYDNEY, AUTUMN 2017

  ‘It’s like a time capsule!’ Vanessa exclaimed.

  She lifted out a jet necklace, almost small enough to be a choker, that was decorated with an intricate pattern of beads and droplets. Its facets twinkled as they caught the sunlight. ‘Not especially valuable, but pretty nonetheless. Late Victorian, I’d say.’ Before having kids Vanessa had worked for one of Sydney’s foremost jewellers, specialising in estate pieces.

  Then she found an elaborately decorated but tarnished silver-backed hand mirror. It rattled slightly as she raised it up to her face, the looking glass loose in its setting. She admired her reflection in the age-spotted surface and then turned it over to see the ‘AT’ entwined on the back.

  ‘So, we have an AT from this, and an ET from the sketches,’ mused Anna as she examined it.

  Next was a small, grainy, black-and-white photograph.

  ‘Ooh, now we’re getting somewhere!’ said Vanessa, holding it up to show Anna.

  The photograph, mounted on stiff card, showed an outdoor scene with a man sitting in a spindly-wheeled old-fashioned wheelchair. Next to him stood a young woman, her fair hair drawn back from her face and a slight smile on her lips. The man was wearing a suit and collar and the woman a dress with long leg o’mutton sleeves, her waist cinched in to tiny proportions. In the background was an imposing house, with more than a dozen chimney pots atop its steeply pitched slate roof. A grand front door was flanked by a series of tall, rectangular windows, their panes divided into small squares. In front of them was a wide drive, and on the left, in the foreground, a series of large, bushy shrubs.

  ‘It looks English, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Could be.’ Vanessa turned the photo over. ‘Look, there’s something written on the back.’

  ‘Well, what does it say? Can you make it out?’ asked Anna impatiently. Excitement pulsed through her veins at their discovery. It was like discovering clues to a fascinating puzzle.

  ‘John Trebithick and his daughter. There’s a date too. Spring 1886,’ Vanessa added.

  ‘The same year as some of the drawings are dated,’ said Anna. ‘I wonder if ET is his daughter? Do you think she’s the artist?’

  ‘Or it could be AT,’ Vanessa reminded her. ‘Like the mirror. And anyway, the watercolours might be the work of a man.’

  ‘To have been kept in such a box?’ Anna was doubtful.

  ‘Good point.’

  ‘She’s very pretty, isn’t she?’ said Anna, studying the image as Vanessa returned to the box.

  ‘And what’s this?’

  Pressed between two pieces of thick paper was a pale, almost translucent flower. It crackled as Vanessa placed her finger on the petal. ‘This is your area of expertise, sis,’ Vanessa said, carefully handing it over to her. ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘Some kind of lily, at a best guess,’ she said, examining it gently. ‘But not a type I’ve ever seen before.’

  Vanessa, meanwhile, had returned her attention to the box’s false-bottomed compartment. It seemed it had one more treasure to yield.

  ‘Silk damask, I think,’ she said, holding out a small drawstring bag, that once might have been a vibrant scarlet but was now mostly faded to a light red. Carefully, Vanessa loosened the ties at the top of the bag and peered inside. With a bemused expression she then emptied the contents onto Anna’s dining table: small, brown, dried-up bean-shaped objects tumbled onto the table, some spilling on the floor.

  Anna stopped her examination of the pressed flower and bent down to retrieve the wayward seeds. Gathering them in the palm of her hand, she pinched one between her thumb and forefinger and held it up, viewing it with the eye of an expert. ‘Never seen anything like it,’ she murmured to herself, before carefully returning all of the seeds to the bag. ‘I wonder if I planted …’

  ‘So,’ Vanessa said, sitting back in her chair. ‘What do you make of all this, then?’

  Anna was still thinking. ‘I’m not exactly sure.’

  ‘How could it have survived for all these years?’

  ‘Well, the box is pretty strong. It must have protected this stuff from anything that could have damaged it, like extremes of temperature or humidity. And the paper is quite thick; rag paper, I reckon, or something similar. I remember learning about it in history – they sometimes used to make paper with old cotton cloths way back when. Oh, just a minute!’

  Anna reached over to the bookcase and retrieved the notebook she had brought back from the Paddington house. ‘This was the first thing the builders found in the cavity. I forgot all about it.’

  As she opened it, the binding cracked slightly and she saw that the front page was torn out. She turned the pages, which were densely covered in a spidery writing, the ink faded to sepia.

  ‘It seems to be a diary,’ she said. ‘Look, there are dates at the top of some of the pages.’

  ‘It’s been kept away from light for a long time, too,’ Vanessa added. ‘That would have helped preserve it.’

  ‘Do you know, it’s really odd,’ said Anna looking up from the notebook. ‘But I could have sworn I smelled the ocean when I first opened the box.’

  ‘Well, it might have come by sea?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe. Or maybe it’s just my imagination running away with me. But the drawings. They’re not of plants native to England. Nor Australia, for that matter,’ said Anna.

  ‘Any idea where they might be from?’

  ‘I was trying to figure that out last night. A lot of them look South American to me.’

  ‘So, the mystery deepens,’ said Vanessa. ‘How thrilling! And what about the diary? Is there a name written inside it?’

  Anna shook her head. ‘It looks as if someone has torn out the first few pages. And the writing’s really hard to read.’

  ‘Can you make out any of it? Here, let me have a look.’

  Anna had opened the diary at random and together they pored over it. ‘There’s something here about a ship. “The decks are iced …” Is that word “iced”?’ Vanessa asked.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘“The decks are iced over and we cannot leave our cabin …” Cool.’

  ‘Literally,’ said Anna, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Looks like you were right about the box having come here by ship.’

  ‘I guess. I’ll have a proper look at it later today.’

  ‘Oh, bloody hell!’ Vanessa grumbled as her mobile began to ring. She pulled it from her jeans pocket and glanced at the screen. ‘Harvey.’

  Anna disappeared to the kitchen to clear up their breakfast mess, and to let Vanessa talk to Harvey.

  Her sister soon appeared in the doorway. ‘I’d better run – he’s wondering where I’ve got to. Honestly, he can’t cope with those kids for more than five minutes on his own. It was so worth coming over though, sis – that’s quite a find. Any idea what you’re going to do with it all?’

  Anna blinked. She hadn’t imagined that she needed to do anything with it. Then a thought occurred to her. ‘Well, there’s Jane, one of my old mates from university. She works at the Gardens now. I’ve kind of lost touch with her …’ She paused as Vanessa raised her eyebrows. ‘Yeah, I know,’ Anna continued, ‘but I could ask her. Sh
e might know, or know someone who could shed some light.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ said Vanessa gathering her keys and handbag. ‘Keep me posted – I’m dying to know more, and I’m sure Mum is too.’

  Anna spent a few hours trying to decipher the diary entries, but with limited success – looking at the writing for too long gave her a headache. She couldn’t guess at its connection to the sketchbook and box, for the handwriting was different, though the dates were similar, the diary entries just a year or so later.

  She managed to work out that its author was called Marguerite, and that she was sailing to Australia. The first few pages were dated February 1888 and spoke of long days at sea, rats gnawing at her boots and a mysterious ‘L’ growing fretful and sick. Marguerite seemed to bear the arduous journey with fortitude, reminding herself to stay strong, though she mentioned growing tired of the continued suppers of greasy mutton soup, coarse bread and hard cheese. She also disapproved of the copious jugs of rum the male passengers downed, often retiring early to her tiny cabin with L, lying awake on their hard bunk while L slept. Anna hadn’t yet figured out who ‘L’ was, other than a baby.

  As she lay back on her infinitely softer bed, Anna was transported back in time, imagining the rolling ship and the endless weeks at sea, the waves twice the height of a man washing over the decks, trying to care for a sickly infant. Marguerite didn’t mention a husband, so why would she have been at sea with a child? Was she widowed, travelling to make her home in a new land perhaps?

  Anna could scarcely imagine the courage it had taken to embark on such a journey, into the complete unknown, and what’s more with a baby to keep safe.

  She read on … Marguerite seemed apprehensive, ‘glad to be quit of the place’ and the ‘evil spirits’ that pursued her. ‘I can never return home,’ she wrote. ‘For surely he will find me, and the child and I would fear for our very lives. But soon I shall be a free woman, and for that I will be forever grateful.’

  A chill went through Anna as she read this. How dreadful to have to flee your home, to travel for weeks and face the unknown. Marguerite must have been a stoic woman indeed.