Page 104 of Bane Bloom

Scent wafted out, perfume perhaps, and indeed I saw a small, ornate bottle, half full of a pale liquid. I closed my eyes and breathed. Jasmine. The flower grew in many Chelsea gardens, and the scent always left me with a dreamy, melancholy feeling.

There were trinkets in the box. Paste jewelry. A square of carmine fabric that might have been from a scarf or shawl. I took the things out one by one, and at last came to a tarnished silver case shaped like a small fan. I turned it over in my hands and then opened it. Inside was a tray of partially used watercolor paint cakes. Smiling through fresh tears, I set it aside with the other things.

At last the chest was empty but for a folded sheet of paper. I hesitated, recalling how secreted bits of writing from the dead had so recently changed the course of my life.

Slowly I opened it. Not words, but a sketch, and barely that. Only the outlines of a mother holding an infant to her breast. Though the detail was scant, the woman’s face was peaceful and smiling.

I showed it to Papa. “Did you do this?”

He shook his head. “No, child.”

On the morning of my return journey to Buttermere, I woke to a sudden chirp that struck me with a fear that the last month of my life had been no more than a dream. My eyes went to the bedside table, and I drew a breath of relief to see Thomas’s herb charm there.

Though my watch pendant had seemed not to recover from its dunking, I’d continued to wear it, as it reminded me of the things I’d learned about myself at Pine Cottage. As I held the watch to my ear now, my heart leapt to hear the familiar steady ticking.

I rose from bed, dressed, and went downstairs to add a few things to my trunk, which was already waiting at the door. I found Papa in the dining room with his newspaper and coffee, and he greeted me brightly. There would be no tears over my departure this time, for Papa would be joining me in Buttermere for my wedding soon enough.

After a quick breakfast, I climbed the stairs to Papa’s studio.

I went to the windows and drew back the curtains, pausing to look out at the Thames, which glinted in the light of the rising sun.

Then I went to take my leave of Mama. Like always, the portrait was turned to the wall. The painting would probably forever be too painful for Papa to face forward, but I also knew he couldn’t bear to get rid of it. I took hold of the frame and lifted and turned it.

My eyes moved over the softly coiled dark hair, falling in wisps over her shoulders, one shoulder bared by the loose neck of her dress. She held a paintbrush in one hand, and a canvas with a few beginning strokes stood behind her. As I studied her face, a ray of sunshine streamed through the open window and burnished the beige of her cheeks and forehead.

Her barely there smile looked different to me today. What I’d always read as coolness, or wryness, was more like . . . pretended impatience masking indulgence. I could almost hear her voice: “I’m working, John.”

And there was unmistakable fondness.

But a Dream

Buttermere—Five weeks later

“Please be still,” I said, tidying Thomas’s ascot. “This is hard enough with you being tall as a birch tree.”

“No one will notice, lass,” he said, taking hold of my waist and pulling me close. “I feel like a clown in this costume anyway.”

I let out a squeal as he buried his face in my neck. “I will notice,” I laughed. “Humor me, please; the hardest part is over.”

“But when can we go home?” he said in his most maddeningly deep voice, his hand gliding up the bodice of my dove-gray gown.

“After!” I cried, but I couldn’t help pressing myself into him.

We’d arrived back at The Mill from church, for the wedding breakfast, ahead of the rest of the village. Annie and I had deemed it best that instead of a quiet event for family and friends, we would invite everyone, in hopes of bribing them to accept us with cake, champagne, and dancing.

It was a beautiful summer day and the windows and doors were thrown open, a pleasant breeze off the lake wafting through. Vases of lavender on every table. A great white wedding cake decorated with fresh pink roses—a genuine Annie creation.

I didn’t know what to expect, but one by one they came—Liddells, Cliffords, the parson, the elder Mrs. Foss, and Bill and Annie of course, her new baby girl in her arms. The blacksmith, known to Thomas but a new acquaintance of mine. Several families from the farms that dotted the lower slopes of the fells. Even Hamish, who shook Thomas’s hand, teased him good-naturedly for plucking me out from under his nose, and demanded at least one dance that hadn’t already been claimed by my husband.

And of course Papa, who’d given me away at church, and whom Annie and Mrs. Foss doted on and tiny Ada Foss seemed to adore. Nancy, too, had come from London. She and Papa would remain here a couple of weeks, so Papa might see me settled and do some painting before returning to Chelsea for perhaps another year. I would travel back to London with some regularity to visit him, as well as to meet with Mr. Harding about our work in the glasshouse and my book. I’d made good progress while awaiting our wedding, and Mr. Harding had gained the official curatorship of the Chelsea Physic Garden. Papa had brought me a letter from Harding that mentioned promising meetings with publishers.

As soon as all were assembled in The Mill dining room, we cut the cake, raised glasses of champagne for a toast, and called for the musicians to play the first waltz. I kicked off my shoes, led Thomas out onto the floor, and climbed onto his shoes. I had only just taught him to dance, and my feet were far safer when they were up off the ground.

Thomas smiled more than I’d ever seen him, our guests shared in our laughter and joy, and I felt like a fairy, dancing on air.

My new husband did not carry me over the threshold. He carried me straight to the shingle beach, stripped me down to my shift, and tossed me into the lake.

“I’ll not worry about my wife drowning every day of our lives,” he’d said as he slung me over his shoulder while I shrieked and laughed and beat at his great Viking back with my fists. The water was cold, but the sun was hot, and he stripped off his own wedding garb and joined me. The stripping led to kissing, and the kissing to other things, but I did, eventually, get my first swimming lesson.

As we walked hand in hand back toward the house, I thought I saw a face looking down on us from the window of our bedroom. It was the face of the woman in the illustration I’d done of the Brugmansia.

“Look, Thomas,” I said quietly, pointing.

He stilled and looked up, and moisture pooled in his eyes.

He squeezed my hand, and when I looked again, the face was gone.

That night, while Papa rested from the big day in a comfortable room at The Mill, I dozed on my husband’s chest in our bedroom, feeling his fingers trail from my neck down to my backside. I noticed Thomas had taken down the portrait of his grandfather. Papa was going to begin a portrait of us while he was here, and that would go in its place.

We remained in the great antique bed, not sleeping, but reveling in each other’s bodies. And when exhaustion finally took me from him, I dreamed of a beautiful white horse. I rode on his back under the full moon, fists wrapped in his silken mane, which gleamed like silver in the moonlight. He waded out with me into the lake and began to swim. My nightdress trailed in the rippling wake from his powerful movements as we glided toward the moon’s reflection. I glanced behind me, laughing, and called to our little ones to keep up.

A few years later, it was no longer a dream.