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“Set it free, Jessamine.” His eyes stayed fixed on his desk as if they would bore two holes in it. “The frog’s destiny is no business of yours.”
Now there are two men in the distance, but neither of them is Father. One is too short, and the other is too fat. They are the Wesleyan preachers, a loudmouthed pair from one of the nonconformist sects. They used to come to the door now and then, in their long coats and strange hats, saying, “The end of the world is nigh!”
I find them funny, to be truthful. “The end of the world” – what a notion! As if there were anything to be done about that. Surely it would be better not to know.
I do not think the preachers will pay a call today though. The last time they came, Father spoke to them very harshly, “That it will someday be the year eighteen hundred, rather than seventeen what-you-please, is a simple mathematical fact of the Gregorian calendar. It is a new century, not a harbinger of doom!” he bellowed. “Take your superstitions, and be gone!”
They have not knocked on our door since.
I watch through the window as the two figures disappear into the valley at the foot of one hill and reappear a short time later, as the path rises over the slope of the next. But there is no Father, not yet.
I awaken in Father’s chair, the one in the parlour nearest the hearth. I had not meant to fall asleep, but an hour’s sewing made me close my eyes to rest them. Now the cloud-veiled sun is low in the sky, and the skirt with the torn hem that I was in the midst of mending has slipped from my lap to the dirty floor.
Father is not home. Could some misfortune have befallen him? It makes my chest tighten to think of it, like a heavy rope has been coiled around my body and pulled hard, until I can barely breathe.
If something happened to Father, then I would truly be alone.
I would be alone with the cottage that once was a chapel, and the gardens, and the ruins, and whatever ghosts of dead monks still wander the fields. I might never have cause to speak aloud again.
Unless I left. I could leave, I suppose, if something happened to Father.
Why not? I could leave Hulne Abbey to crumble and the gardens to grow wild. Someday, after many seasons of snow and rain, the iron lock that seals the great black gate to the apothecary garden would rust and break open. The heavy chain would slip to the ground, and all the deadly plants would be loosed upon the world –
This is all more foolishness. I am used to being alone, and it is ridiculous to mind it. Father is fine, I know it. He is too clever and strong to let anything bad happen to him. And I have plenty of work to occupy me and keep my thoughts from straying into dark corners. I check my list:
I will turn over the empty garden beds and prepare them for planting.
I will spread a fresh layer of mulch over the strawberry patch.
I will cut back last year’s dead growth on all the kitchen herbs, right to the ground, so the new sprouts will have sun and room to grow.
Good health to Father, I think nervously. A quick recovery to his patient, whomever it may be. A safe and speedy return to the cottage.
But it occurs to me: perhaps there is no one sick. Perhaps Father is at Alnwick, at the castle library, lost in his research and the workings of his own mind, and that is why he has not thought to send word to me. Perhaps he has finally found the mysterious books he has sought for so long, among the duke’s many ancient and dusty volumes – the ones he believes may have been rescued from the hospital of the old monastery, before the soldiers came to burn what would burn and smash the rest.
Do these volumes even exist? Father believes they do. He believes passionately and without proof, the way other men believe in God. He often talks of these books in the evenings in our parlour, a glass of absinthe and water in his hand. When he speaks of them, his speech quickens and his eyes flash.
“The monastery hospital was famous throughout Europe,” he begins, as if I had not heard this tale from birth. “The monks’ power to heal the sick was so great that the people called them miracle workers, and sometimes even saints.” Then he laughs. “Anyone could be such a saint, if they had access to the same information as those long-dead holy men! Someone must have saved the volumes that contain all the monks’ wisdom. It would have been madness not to.”
He sips his green, liquorice-scented drink and continues in this vein until the fire dies and my head nods forward on my chest.
Sometimes I think Father’s hunger to know what the monks knew is a madness all its own. Once, long ago, I watched him dig up a ten-foot square in a distant field to twice the depth of his spade. He planted nothing, but visited the place daily for weeks, to see if anything unusual had sprouted in the freshly turned earth.
“Did you think your shovel might wake the bones of all those dead monks, until they rise and tell you their secrets?” I joked nervously as I watched him sift through the dirt with his fingers.
“The monks may be dead, but their medicines still lie sleeping in the ground.” There was an edge to his voice. “Hidden deep in the cold, dark earth, a seed can be nearly immortal. Even after so many years, if exposed once more to the light and air and rain, there is a chance some long-forgotten plant of great power may yet reveal itself.”
I had meant only to tease, but instead I seem to have stirred Father’s anger, for he kept muttering furiously to himself: “But what of it? Any discovery I make will be useless, unless I can learn the specimen’s properties, its uses, its dangers…”
“No one knows more about plants than you do, Father,” I said, to calm him.
He climbed to his feet, dirt clinging to his knees. All at once he was shouting, “Compared to the monks I know nothing! I dig blindly to rediscover what they took as common sense. The formulae all burned, the wisdom of centuries in ashes…To kill such knowledge is itself murder – it is worse than murder—”
Father raged on. I stopped listening and let his voice turn to a wordless buzz, a hornet floating near my ear. All I could think was, But how could a puny seed be immortal, when it was so easy for Mama to die?
Wait, I hear someone at the door – it must be Father home at last—
17th March
WARMER TODAY, BUT A STEADY WIND BLOWS from the east, smelling faintly of the sea. The sun peeked through the clouds briefly after lunch. Then grey skies once more.
Made breakfast for Father, who ate little and said less. After the meal he went straight to his study and locked the door. I am alone again.
Changed the soaking water for the belladonna seeds – only one more day before they are ready for planting!
Father still has not told me where he was.
I try to busy myself with chores. I practise sketching, though I can
