Like a Flower in Bloom (17 page)

I returned home that night to find Mr. Trimble sitting at his desk, letter in hand, looking right past me at . . . I turned to look, but there was nothing of any interest behind me in the hall. “Mr. Trimble?”

He blinked. “Miss Withersby.” He stood so quickly his chair almost tipped over.

“May I help you?” I hated to say the words. In fact, I had vowed never to offer my help to him in any way, but his manner was so odd. He looked ill.

As I spoke, he shoved the letter into his coat pocket. Now he was staring at me with a guilty sort of look. “No. Thank you. Just some correspondence that has caught up to me. Does your hunt for a husband progress, Miss Withersby?”

“Yes. Quite well, thank you.”

He nodded rather absentmindedly. “You don’t find society too demanding?”

“I find it inscrutable.”

He squinted. “Pardon me?”

“I don’t understand the rules. Miss Templeton gave me a book on etiquette, and I was hoping it would educate me on those things I haven’t understood, but it has only confused me more. If I’m to believe what I read, I should hardly be allowed to speak. Miss Templeton speaks all the time, however, and I noticed the same of nearly all of the women in town. There must be some method to it, but even upon examination, I have not been able to discover it.”

“It’s quite simple, really. You must stop thinking of conversation as a sort of examination and start thinking of it as a game. The point is not to be the person at whom it stops. It’s rather like a game of twirling the trencher.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“Come. You must have played it in your youth.”

“I have not. I never have.”

He said nothing.

I said nothing.

A great and familiar silence fell over the room. “See, this is what always happens to me.”

“Conversation, my dear Miss Withersby, is a very fragile creature. You must nourish it if you would have it survive. Its favorite food is a question. When I mentioned twirling the trencher do you remember what you said?”

“I said I had never played it.”

“And I said?”

What had he said? “You said I must have played it in my youth.”

“And what did you reply?”

“That I had not.”

“And then?”

“The conversation stopped.”

“You made a statement. Could you think of a question you might have asked instead?”

“About what?”

“In answer to my saying you must have played it in your youth.”

“Was there something questionable in that? If there was, I fail to see it.”

“Miss Withersby! You are the most exasperating—!” He took a deep breath. “Forgive me. You are one of the most
intelligent
women I know. You have not learned your science by giving
statements, have you? Isn’t all your progress in botany made by asking questions?”

“Of course it is.”

“And why?”

“Because there’s so much to be discovered. If I don’t ask questions, then how will I learn anything?”

“Exactly. You’re approaching conversation all wrong. The point is to learn something.”

“About what?”

“About anything! About the person to whom you’re speaking. About the topic they’re speaking on. You’re missing fascinating bits of information because you’re failing to ask questions. You’re simply waiting to be asked them. Waiting to give answers.”

Perhaps he was right.

“Shall we try again?”

I tried to think of something else to say, but what other remark could I make about a game I had never played? “I . . . I have never played the game but . . . perhaps I might like to.” I paused as I reconsidered. “That’s not strictly true, Mr. Trimble. As a general rule, I don’t like to play games, but—”

He was laughing.

“I fail to see anything amusing in—”

“I’m sorry, Miss Withersby, but you’ve never said a truer thing. The whole problem is that you don’t like to play games. I cannot tell you how much I admire that, but I will tell you a secret. Most people say things they don’t mean all the time.”

I felt my mouth drop open. “You mean to say they lie? On
purpose
?”

“I wouldn’t call it lying. In any case, you were telling me you’d never played twirling the trencher . . . ?”

“Perhaps . . . perhaps you could explain to me how to play that game since I’ve never played it before?”

He clapped. “
Brava
, Miss Withersby. Well done! And because you asked a question, now we can have a conversation.” He proceeded to explain to me how to play it. Something about spinning a trencher or tray on its end and someone having to pick it up before it falls. But when he was finished he looked at me as if expecting something.

“Now I suppose I am to ask you some other question.”

“That would be quite agreeable.”

I didn’t care about spinning trenchers and I could see he was going to be quite obstinate about this whole thing, so I tried to think of something else I didn’t know that I could discover. That’s when I began to see how I could use this exercise to my advantage. To get him to leave, it might be useful to determine from where it was that he’d come. “Where, in fact, are you from, Mr. Trimble? I don’t believe you’ve ever said.”

“The east.”

“As in . . . Kent? Or India?”

“I wish I could say I was from the subcontinent. I hope one day to journey there.”

“I do as well. I dream of seeing a lotus in its natural state. Do your interests there lie in botany?”

“Partially. I’ve also heard there is a good living to be made in that colony from tea.”

“You are quite unexpected: a sheep farmer with an interest in flowers and a passion for tea.”

“I would say you are quite unexpected as well, Miss Withersby, with your unnerving combination of highly developed intellect and unspoilt beauty. Your appeal is the same as that of a Scottish heath.”

“. . . I . . . can’t think that any of those things go together.”

A flush had crept up around his ears. “Forgive me. It was meant to be poetical.”

He saw me as a Scottish heath? How was I to respond to that? The etiquette book didn’t cover how one should reply to poetical men.

When I next saw Miss Templeton, at the field club meeting, I kept Mr. Trimble’s words about conversing foremost in my mind. He had told me that a question answered begs a question in return, so when she asked if I was well, I told her I had the most pernicious crick at the base of my neck. I then asked a question in turn. “But how is your scandal coming?”

We dropped a curtsey at Mr. Shandlin, but before he could acknowledge us, she drew me past him over to a secluded pair of chairs toward the back of the room. As we passed by people who were eating and drinking, I wondered if we might not be served refreshments during the course of the meeting. I hoped so.

“How clever of you to remember my scandal! I’ve taken my maid into my confidence on little things now and then, such as my suspicions that I look much better in pink than in green. Quite soon I feel I’ll be able to ask her outright how one goes about such things. Papa is getting quite anxious that I marry, so I feel as if my time runs short. And you? Does our plan seem to be succeeding?”

I considered the question for a moment before I answered. “On the whole, I rather think it does. Mr. Trimble, at least, seems very set on the best ways to improve me, but don’t you think that—”

“
Improve
you? What a beast! I like you quite well the way you are. If he succeeds in changing you, he shall have to answer for it. Besides, what could a man from a family like his have to say about improving you?”

“Rather a lot.”

She laughed. “I can just imagine him, going on about . . . What has he gone on about?”

“He . . . taught me a parlor game. And he saved me from going out with a pelerine knotted about my neck, and—”

“Why would you have knotted a pelerine about your neck?”

“I thought it was . . . That is to say, I was mistaken about what it was. In any case, he’s been quite helpful.”

“Don’t for a minute begin to trust him! He’s only trying to gain your sympathy, and I
won’t have it
. You must be strong, Miss Withersby. Remember: the whole purpose of our plan is to make him return to whence he came.”

“New Zealand. And before that, from the east.”

“What?”

“He came here from New Zealand. He’s a sheep farmer.”

She sniffed. “Perhaps that’s why he smells of sheep.”

“He doesn’t.”

“Doesn’t what?”

“Smell of sheep. He smells of something quite wonderful really. I’ve been trying to place it . . . something almost like cinnamon. Or cloves.”

“Well, it’s not to be borne!”

“What isn’t?”

“I won’t have you going around sniffing him. You must not forget that he’s old and rude and . . . and
mean
!”

“He’s not very old in fact, and he’s not rude. At least not all of the time.”

She was glaring at me.

“I do, however, understand what you are saying, and I’ll try to be more circumspect about him in the future.”

“All in all, I think that’s wise.”

The room fell quiet as a man began to speak at the front of the room. He introduced himself as the president of the field
club and said a few words of welcome before someone rose to read the minutes of the previous meeting. A woman sat down next to Miss Templeton. As the man spoke, the room began to get quite stuffy, and I wondered when the field club would actually move out to a field. Glancing about the room, I saw that I was the only person who had brought a vasculum.

Some other man replaced the reader of the minutes and talked about the schedule of events for the coming year and the party that was to take place in December, along with several other items that didn’t really seem to be of much importance. It was followed by a general discussion about a spring excursion to Chester on the train.

When he sat down, no one took his place and everyone seemed determined to order drinks all at once, and . . . “Is that all there is to the meeting?”

Miss Templeton leaned toward me. “What’s that?”

“Are we not going out to the field?”

“Not this week. Next week. Perhaps. Depending upon the hunters and stalkers.”

“But what is the purpose of a field club if it doesn’t venture out into the field?”

“We do venture . . . sometimes. Next week, perhaps, but mostly in the spring and summer, when the weather is better. We went to Ravenhead once. It was delightful!”

The woman sitting next to Miss Templeton began to rhapsodize about the trip. Mostly she recounted how the village was quite unlike what she had expected and how the train they’d taken was so comfortable.

I could not keep myself from interrupting them. “What about the flowers?”

“What flowers?” The woman looked at me as if I were quite mad.

“Was there nothing of distinction that you found?”

“Not really.” She giggled with Miss Templeton. “Unless you count Mr. Leighton.”

“Mr. Leighton? Is that a colloquial name for a flower? I’ve never heard of it before.”

Miss Templeton laughed outright. “It’s the name of her husband. It wasn’t long after our Ravenhead excursion that they were betrothed.”

A swath of light swept across our table, and we turned to see the door had opened.

“Oh, it’s Mr. Stansbury!” Miss Templeton stood and waved him over as Mrs. Leighton left.

He bowed as he greeted us.

“Do pull up a chair and join us.” She scooted hers away from mine. “You can sit just here, between us.”

He soon returned with a chair.

“You missed the meeting!” Miss Templeton chided him, though she did it with a smile.

“I’m so sorry to hear it.”

“We’re to go out toward Comber Mere, if weather permits. I daresay if you are late for that meeting, you’ll miss the outing.”

“Then I will try to be punctual.” He turned toward me. “Are you going to scold me as well, Miss Withersby?”

“I couldn’t say. Have you done something about which you’d rather I not hear?”

He laughed. “I’ve done a good many things I’d rather you not hear about, but I can’t say I’ve done anything scandalous lately.”

“Perhaps you could give Miss Templeton some advice then. She’s trying to work up a scandal of her own.”