no longer. The fire is still in embers, so I am quickly able to rekindle it and put on a kettle of water for tea. As soon as the tea is ready, I set it on a tray and proceed to Father’s study.
Before I knock, I peer through the keyhole. What I see only fills me with more questions. Father paces around the room and mutters like a wild thing, grabbing volumes from the shelves and throwing them down again. His heavy leather-bound book of formulas, the one he keeps locked in a drawer, lies open on his desk. Now and then he comes back to the book and leafs through the pages, looking for something that he clearly cannot find.
I take a deep breath to calm myself and knock on the great wooden door.
“Father? I brought you some tea.”
Silence. Then:
“I did not ask for tea, Jessamine.”
“I want to speak to you.”
A thud, as of a large book slammed shut. The bang of a drawer closing, the click of a lock. Father opens the door, the small gold key still in his hand.
“Speak then. I am busy; I am sure you can deduce that from the state of my desk.” He looks down at the tray. “What type of tea is it?”
“Lemon balm. Made with leaves that I saved from last summer and dried in the storeroom.” I lift the tray higher, so he can catch the scent. “It is very soothing.”
“Lemon balm tea,” he echoes as I make my way past him and place the tray on his desk. The dark wood is pocked and crisscrossed with grooves from a few centuries’ worth of scribbling pens. “Such a simple, harmless drink. Made by your own sweet hands, I presume?”
“Of course.” I hand him the cup. Lemon-scented steam rises between us. As he sips I gather my courage to ask, “Where were you, Father?”
“In my study, obviously. I have been in here all day.”
“I mean yesterday. And the day before, and the day before that.”
He turns away. “I was where my services were required; that is all you need to know.”
“That is not an answer.” I too can be stubborn – I am my father’s daughter, after all. “I was left here alone for three days. Surely it is only fair that I know why.”
He looks angry at first. Then his face softens.
“I am sorry if you were anxious, Jessamine. I was called away to deal with an urgent medical matter. It took up all of my attention; if you had asked me how many days I had been absent from home, I myself
could not tell you.”
“Called away to where?”
“I have been in London.”
“London! Why? Where? Why did you not take me?”
He holds up a hand to stop my questions. “I have been to places I hope you never go, and seen things I hope you never see. I was in London. That is all I will say, and even that is saying too much. Now forgive me; I must get back to work.” He turns to retreat to his chair, then stops. “How are the gardens, Jessamine? Are you tending them well?”
“Of course. I have turned over all the beds, and planted the lettuce and radishes, and—”
He interrupts. “And the belladonna seeds?”
“I have changed the water every day, exactly as you showed me. Tomorrow they will be ready for planting.” On a foolish impulse I add, “May I plant the seeds myself? I have taken good care of them this far.”
“No. I will do it.”
“But, Father, why not?”
“You have already done too much.”
“Soaking seeds? I’ve done nothing! How I wish you would let me into the apothecary garden! I could help you with your research, your cures—”
“No! You must not. Swear to me, Jessamine. Even when I am not at home – and I may have to go away again, and soon – swear that you will not go in there.” Father walks towards me step by step, forcing me to retreat until I stand in the doorway to the study once more.
“You needn’t make me swear. The gate is locked, remember?” I sound sullen and sarcastic; I cannot help it. “For I am only a foolish child who cannot be trusted to have sense enough not to poison herself. Isn’t that what you think? But you are mistaken, Father. I am not a child any more.”
“You are a child,” Father says flatly, “until I say you are not. Now leave me. I will see you at supper.”
He steps back, and the ancient door shuts in my face.
Out of the front door of the cottage, through the courtyard, past the ruins and the outer wall, to the footpath, the crossroads, the world. I walk quickly, until my breath comes fast and my heart pounds.
I may not go back. No – I will not go back. If Father can disappear for three days, so can I. For three days, or three years, or three lifetimes.
You are a child until I say you are not.
Am I really? What child would leave home as I do now, with no destination except away from you, penniless and provisionless, with only the shawl around her head for shelter?
When I grow hungry I will find roots and berries to eat. Perhaps it is out here, in the wide, wild, unchained world, that I will finally taste all the forbidden fruit you keep under lock and key. Perhaps there are fresh mysteries growing in the woods, delicious, dangerous poisons that even you do not know exist!
In this way my spiteful, wounded thoughts circle round and round, erasing the passage of time. Am I a mile from the cottage? Five miles? Ten? I break into a half-run as the path veers into a downhill slope, and spread my arms like a sail to catch the wind. If only the currents of air could lift me and carry me! How pleasant it would be to fly on that wind, like the tuft of a dandelion. How much easier it would be to soar, weightless, than to trudge across the countryside dragging the bulk of my long skirt and petticoat, with my feet bound into heavy boots that seem to have grown too small again.
I pause to catch my breath and to still my whirling brain. My thoughts trip over one another, vying to be heard, like many voices in a shouting mob. My hair has come loose and the stinging tendrils whip into my eyes. The hem of my skirt is heavy with mud; my sleeves are damp with the tears I have been wiping away since I bolted from the cottage. I did not think to bring water with me – I was not thinking at all when I ran out in the heat of fury – and now my throat is raw and dry.
It would serve Father right if I sated my thirst from the ditch where I poured the belladonna water, I think bitterly. Let him find me dead under the gorse bushes. Let him bury me deep in the ground, my arms twined around the bones of that soft, orange-furred cat.
Exhausted, I let myself fall to the ground in the sheep meadow that borders the path. I lie with my back pressed to the earth and feel the dampness of the grass seeping into my clothes.
Above me, high in the cold blue
