A Memory of Violets (19 page)

“Esther.” Tilly tested the sound of the name. It was like a soft, breath of wind.

She tiptoed to the end of the bed, where her mother sat, propped up against the pillows, a perfect little baby girl nuzzling at her breast. She couldn't remember ever seeing her mother so content. She looked like a different person.

“Come and look, Tilly,” she whispered. “Isn't she just beautiful?”

Tilly crept forward and looked.

She stared at the helpless infant, at her tiny fists curled into little balls, like rosebuds; at her impossibly small feet; at the tea-rose pink of her delicate skin. She stared and stared, and she knew that she loved her, very much.

“Do you love your new sister?” her father asked the next morning when he found her leaning over Esther's crib, staring at her.

“Yes, Daddy, I love her very much.”

“And we love
you
very much.” He wrapped his arms around her. “You know that, Tilly, don't you? We love you both.”

She believed him. For a few precious, perfect months, she believed her father and she loved her sister.

But as the gentle spring rains gave way to the dry heat of summer, Tilly watched her mother from quiet corners of the cottage. She saw how she gazed so adoringly at Esther, fussing and cooing over her with such devotion. She soon tired of her parents talking endlessly about what Esther had done that day—her first sneeze, her first tooth, her first full night's sleep. She felt herself fading into the background, living in the shadows of her own family.

By the time the first storms of winter blew in across the mountains, Tilly didn't love Esther anymore. All she felt was envy. Or was it something darker than that? It was a feeling she hardly dared acknowledge. She shut it out, building a wall around herself.

And then Esther fell dangerously ill with a fever. For weeks, nobody noticed Tilly. Hannah Harper lost all interest in her elder daughter, caring only for the frail, much-longed-for baby, who had entered the world with a struggle and barely survived her first year.

Tilly became an irritation, a nuisance. Forgotten about, she retreated to the lakes and fells where she felt her anger stir within her like the iron-gray clouds gathering over the mountains.

She sensed a storm was coming.

I
t was a week before Alexandra Rose Day. The girls had been working long hours to make the thousands of tiny pink roses. They were all exhausted but still the thrill of expectation buzzed around them as the day grew ever closer.

And as the real roses in the window boxes of Violet House bloomed, so did Tilly's fondness for the girls under her charge. She enjoyed their strange habits and quirky little ways: Edna's insistence on eating a boiled egg with every meal; Doris's eccentric collection of clothes—most of which she seemed to wear all at the same time; the little flowers that Alice carved out of bars of soap and left dotted around the bathroom; Buttons's tendency to go missing for long periods—particularly when it was time to attend chapel. Each had her own unique personality, which
distinguished them far more than their physical afflictions, which Tilly hardly noticed now.

Of all the girls, she had developed a particular fondness for Hilda. Only sixteen, Hilda struggled, more than most, to accept her handicap—the result of an accident in her father's mill that had led to her right leg being amputated. With her mother dead, and seven older children to manage, Hilda's father hadn't been able to provide the care she needed. He'd reluctantly sent her to the Training Homes, where she'd quickly learned the craft of flower making. She was known affectionately by the other girls as “Lil,” because of the talent she was showing for making the difficult lilies. As one of the newest arrivals at Violet House, Tilly had felt an affinity with her, although she found it strange that she looked so very like Esther.

Tilly had found Hilda weeping on the scullery floor that morning.

“Look at me,” she wept, an upturned bucket of water soaking her skirts. “I can't even carry a bucket of water without ruining everything. I'm no better than those scrawny dogs you see down the markets, hopping around on one leg. I hate myself sometimes. Who's ever going to want to marry a girl with one leg?”

Tilly wasn't always sure what to say to make her feel better. She knew what it was to feel like a failure, to feel that you didn't belong, that you'd let everybody down. She knelt down, placing her arms around the girl's narrow shoulders.

“I know it seems as though life has been cruel to you, Hilda, and I can't blame you for thinking that, but you have a second chance here. Making your wonderful flowers, and for the Queen herself, and living here with the other girls—it's your chance to be part of a family. I know it can't mend your body, but perhaps it can mend something in here—in your heart. You're a
wonderful girl, Hilda. You shouldn't hate yourself. You should be very proud of yourself. You all should.”

Hilda smiled at her through her tears, her eyes so like Esther's.

“Did I ever tell you that you remind me very much of my sister?”

Hilda laughed. “No! I didn't even know you had a sister. You must miss her very much.”

Tilly hung her head and wished she could agree.

A
S LIFE AT
V
IOLET
H
OUSE
had become familiar, so London itself was beginning to settle more easily around Tilly. She almost didn't notice the bitter taste of sulfur that hung in the air over the city skyline and didn't balk quite as much at the heady mixture of industrial and human smells that crept into the back of her throat. For as much as London still suffocated her on occasion, it more often excited and delighted her. Mrs. Ingram was right, London did scrub up as fine as any lady when you got to know her.

Tilly especially looked forward to her monthly afternoon off, when she could enjoy the privacy of a few rare hours to herself, away from Sekforde Street, exploring the famous sights she'd heard so much about: the museums, the palaces and the royal parks. She took pleasure in discovering quieter, secluded squares and gardens, where she would sit, unnoticed, with her sketchbook.

Whenever she could, Tilly took Flora's notebook with her, reading snippets while she was certain of not being disturbed. She hadn't told anyone about the wooden box or the notebook—not even Mrs. Pearce, who'd become a good friend and confidante over the past months.

Most of all, Tilly liked to sit under the cooling shade of an oak tree by the Serpentine in Hyde Park. She observed the starchy nursemaids as they strolled past, pushing their perambulators,
and watched the children playing with their sailing boats on the lake. Then she would take the faded old notebook from her pocket, immersing herself in the life of the two little flower girls. The more she read, the more anxious she was to discover what had happened to Flora—and to little Rosie. They'd become like real people to her, as if she could touch them if she reached far enough into the past.

J
UST AS SHE HAD
on her previous afternoon off, Tilly traveled now by omnibus, across London, to Hyde Park. The sun's relentless heat stuck to everything, casting a hazy shimmer onto the road. Red-faced street sellers cried their wares, as ladies, suffocating in their petticoats and high-collared blouses, sought shade beneath their white parasols.

Reaching the park, Tilly found a secluded tree some distance from the crowds that were gathered around the ginger-beer seller. Settling herself between the gnarled roots of the tree, she discreetly removed her shoes and stockings—abandoning all care for etiquette in the oppressive heat. She imagined how horrified her mother would be if she could see her, and smiled to herself, enjoying her small moment of rebellion, as she enjoyed the sensation of the grass between her toes. Tucking her feet beneath her skirt, she opened the notebook at the page she had left marked and began to read.

September 1880. Clacton.

It was June when I lost you, Rosie. June of the year 1876. Mr. Shaw tells me so. All the same, it's hard to believe it is four full year since I last seen you. It seems like only yesterday I felt your hand slip from mine. I still remember that awful
panic, like someone was after choking me, so as I couldn't catch my breath. Thought I would suffocate without you.

                    
I didn't have the words to write back then, but I do now. I go to the school, see, where I learn my letters and numbers. I like school—it's nice to be able to read and write, and I don't get walloped like at that ragged school I went to.

                    
The school mistress says it's good for me to write down my memories. She says it will help me remember you and that it will help with my writing, too. I try to be neat and tidy on the page, like she teaches us. And I plan to give this book to you, Rosie, when I find you. I know you won't be able to read the words, with you not seeing proper, but I'll read them to you so as you can understand how I never forgot you, nor stopped looking for you.

                    
I'll tell you about my journey from London to Clacton, shall I?

                    
I reckon most children would be thrilled to travel on a train to the seaside, but when I stepped off that platform at Fenchurch Street into the carriage compartment, I felt an awful sadness creeping over me. I was leaving you, Rosie. Leaving London.

                    
The noise of the locomotive as it creaked out of the station scared me half to death, the smoke puffing out of the funnel like a great monster, the wheels clanking and the whistle screeching like a fishwife. I had to cover my ears it was so loud. Luckily, Mr. and Mrs. Shaw were traveling with me, to make sure I got settled into the orphanage. I remember staring at Mrs. Shaw's belly, which was as round as the moon, and her telling me she was to have another baby soon.

                    
She lost that baby not a month later. Gone up to Heaven she is. Another angel.

                    
I stared out the window as we left the grayness of London, and I gawped at the green fields we were soon passing. I'd never seen fields before. I'd seen nothing other than London. I liked the look of them fields—and the sky so big above them—but all I could think was that I was leaving you—every turn of the wheels, every blessed bit of grass taking me farther away from you, Rosie. I watched it all through my tears.

                    
Mr. and Mrs. Shaw were awful kind. They tried to comfort me as them salty tears fell down my cheeks. I dabbed at them with Granny's lace handkerchief, what I kept scrunched into a ball in my hands till it was as sodden as the cresses after the rains. I wanted to jump out the window and run all the way back to Rosemary Court.

                    
Mr. Shaw tried to take my mind off things, telling me about the villages we were passing and the sights we saw. “England is full of views like this, Florrie. Only cities like London are dark and crowded. There's no end to England's landscape.” He told me of places I'd never heard of: the waterways of Norfolk, the lakes of Westmorland, the mountains of Wales and Scotland. I didn't have the heart to tell him I didn't care for any of it without you by my side.

                    
After a long time, the train stopped at a place called Weeley, where a kind man, Mr. King from the local tavern, was waiting with his wagonette to take us to the orphanage.

                    
As we rumbled along, I got a funny taste from the air—and a smell I didn't know. Mr. Shaw told me it was the salt, from the sea. I stuck my tongue out and lapped at it like a cat drinking milk. It tasted so nice, that salt.

                    
Then we went round a bend and, Lor! There it was. The sea. Couldn't take my eyes off it. I sat, staring at that ocean
for an age, all blue and twinkling like stars was caught in them waves. Ye'd have smiled at the funny noise of them seagulls, all screeching like a bawling baby. And that sea breeze, Rosie! I felt that it could lift me up by my petticoats and carry me into the clouds.

I soon got used to life here at the orphanage. I won't deny it is nice to wake up to that fresh sea breeze every morning. It makes me want to skip and run and laugh at them silly seagulls. Makes me feel like I am alive, that sea air does, and I'm happy enough here by the sea, but I think of you every day, Rosie, and pray to God that He will keep you safe.

                    
When I'm after getting sad at night, Mother comes to comfort me. She tells me I mustn't worry about you. She says a person can never be truly lost, as long as someone is looking for them. And I'll always be looking for you, Rosie.

                    
I'm keeping some of your favorite flowers what I found in the meadow and in the gardens that Mr. Hutton keeps so nice. One of the girls puts the flowers between the pages of her Bible. She says they dry out like paper if you leave them long enough and then you have them to admire all year round, even in the winter. She likes to put them onto card and make a picture of them. I'll keep my flowers here, in this book. Do you remember how I used to tell you about the flowers all speaking a language—that they all have a meaning? The gentlemen would buy flowers for a posy to tell their sweethearts of their love for them, and the ladies would choose flowers to send a message of sorrow to a friend whose sister had died. I hope you'll hear my flowers talking to you one day. I chose them especially.

Each year seems to pass quicker than the last. Is it really four full year since I first came here? Is it that long since I last saw you, my dear little Rosie?

There are lots of rules and jobs here, which I find dull, but Mother says it's good for a girl to learn how to behave with proper manners. She says, “A tidy home makes for a tidy mind,” and that I shouldn't be grumbling about small jobs like turning out the cupboards and cleaning all the pictures and windows.

                    
The food is grand, though, and there's always enough for seconds. I stuff my belly so full sometimes I think I'll burst—except on Wednesday's, when it's mutton. I don't care for that mutton—it smells like them bones Da used to collect. Do you remember how we'd sit and sort through the rag and hold a posy of violets to our noses to block out the bad smell?

                    
When we all have our jobs done, we like to have a grand game of schools together, or play dressing up, or plays. Sometimes we have a picnic in the fete field with the Bluebells or the Daffodils (that's what we call the girls from the other homes). We practice the Greek dancing for the fete-day displays and play at games of hide-and-seek, blindman's buff, and skipping.