Too Soon for Flowers (2 page)

It was probably for the best, thought Charlotte with lingering regret, that Edmund would soon leave them at the junction with the post road, to spend a few weeks in New Hampshire as one of a summer party, on an estate along the Merrimack. With tomorrow’s inoculation, Diana would surely be unlikely to appreciate visitors for some time.

“What are those little things?” the young lady now demanded, pointing to the edge of the road.

“Which?” asked Mrs. Willett. She squinted to see more clearly.

“The yellow flowers, there in the grass. I believe I’ll soon have a bouquet. I wonder if they have a scent?”

The captain coaxed his horse ahead, and dismounted. With a flourish, he removed his triangular hat and deposited it safely beneath one arm, causing his white tie-wig to glow in the sun. While the others watched, he bent to pinch several blooms from a clump of fragrant primroses at the highway’s edge; soon, he straightened with a handful. He then approached the chaise, which Mrs. Willett had brought to a halt.

“May I suggest a brief walk, to say farewell?” Captain Montagu murmured, offering the bright bouquet to Miss Longfellow. He was rewarded with the young lady’s hand as she climbed down. He kept it while he guided her away from the road toward another wave of flowers. Moments later, he had captured an entire arm under his own.

“I would like you to know,” he began haltingly, “that I … I have asked your brother for the favor of being called, in the event—if the unexpected should occur.” He finished
stiffly, unsatisfied with his choice of words. Would he ever be able to speak plainly and simply to this woman? Or would their every meeting end with his feeling as if a loaded pistol were pointed at his head?

“Called at my demise, do you mean? Or before?” she answered vaguely. The captain disengaged his arm.

“In the event that you might want to see me. One last time,” he concluded, pleased at the feeling the cruel words gave him.

“Well, I
could
wish to see you then, I suppose,” Diana replied. She leaned forward carefully, for her busk and stays restrained the movement of her slender waist. Then she picked a flower for herself and added it to those the captain had already given her. Though the act was somewhat difficult, its effect was graceful.

“What,” she asked abruptly, “if I do not die, Edmund—but instead become disfigured? Then, what would your feelings be?”

Both had seen women who had been ravaged by the disease. Though most of these unfortunate creatures chose to remain entombed at home forever, a few, usually poor and aged, freely exposed their twisted hands and scarred faces, frightening children and sometimes even their elders. After this epidemic, there would surely be more.

Montagu was the first to shake off the disturbing vision. He patted puffs of dust from the arms of his new blue coat, whose wide military lapels were held back with many brass buttons set off by gold piping.

“If you were to be seriously afflicted,” he replied, “then I would, of course, come to compliment your bravery—and to see if seclusion had made you any better at the whist table, where you still lack something as a partner.”

“I
knew
you hated me because I would not help you win your fortune last winter, poor man! So, you must continue to survive on your meager pay, in spite of the family title.”

“Very true,” he answered with a wry smile. This pretty thing could be cruel, as well, when she chose to be. It was common knowledge that Miss Longfellow’s dowry would be a large one. She would obviously expect, and deserve, to marry a man of wealth—wealth he himself did not possess.

“It is possible, you know,” Diana continued airily, “that I only play poorly in order to spare my neighbors … and to keep their money from flowing back to London one day, with you! For do you not urge us to hold on to all the coin we can get?”

“I did not realize economy was an interest of yours, Miss Longfellow,” he said politely, to irritate her further. When he’d achieved some success the captain went on in a practical vein, appealing to the lady’s intellect. It was a tactic that had been known to flatter (sometimes even to astonish) a female, especially an attractive one who was generally given only insipid conversation.

“I would still encourage you to hold on to your reserves of both gold and silver, especially considering the upheaval in trade the coast has lately suffered,” he said seriously. “But what do you plan to give your dressmaker for your imported satins and silks? Potatoes? When I see the women of Boston wearing homespun wools and linens, I’ll know they have learned good sense and become true converts to sound economic policy. Though the Lord knows, the city’s
politicians
have been talking enough of self-sufficiency lately—largely, I suspect, for the satisfaction of obstructing British interests! But I have no wish to argue with you today, Miss Longfellow.”

“Well, go and argue with someone who will listen in New Hampshire, then,” Diana replied, holding her head high as she affected a sulk. “I’m sure the ladies there will be no happier than I to hear you suggest we drape ourselves in sackcloth.”

“Yet none in New Hampshire could appear more
charming than one Boston lady I know, were she to wear brocade or burlap.”

Diana tossed a curl away from her lovely face, dimpling with pleasure though the very thought of sackcloth made her want to scratch.

The captain was moved by this show of spirit, and by the lady’s rare ability to scoff at the future. It was something she did far better, and far more often, than he. Listening to her musical laugh, he noticed abruptly that the flowers in her hand had already begun to wilt and fade.

He looked up, and took careful note of Diana Longfellow’s faultless complexion. Then, Edmund Montagu took her soft hand in his own once more, while he heard a trill of foreboding play upon his hopeful heart.

AFTER THE CAPTAIN
had made his final farewells and disappeared on the road leading north, under a blue stretch of increasing pressure that must have reached clear to Canada (as Longfellow, who had a new barometer, remarked to himself), the lone rider dropped back and bent to speak.

“Carlotta,” he asked Mrs. Willett as they entered a wood full of scolding jays, “speaking of love, as I presume you were doing, have you spoken with Diana about the girl?”

“Oh—Phoebe!” Charlotte exclaimed. In fact, she hadn’t, for while they were in Boston she had decided to keep Diana’s thoughts away from the procedure scheduled for tomorrow. Now, she turned her azure eyes to a sky of similar hue, trying to think of how to start.

“Phoebe? Can the family of one of your rustics be familiar with the classics?” Diana returned, displaying her usual lack of respect for the countryside and its inhabitants.

“Phoebe is a Concord rustic—not a Bracebridge one,”
Charlotte responded evenly. This clarified the situation somewhat, for everyone knew that the residents of Concord showed a certain lack of common sense. “In a few months, she’s to wed Will Sloan. One of Hannah’s sons.”

“Hannah Sloan!” Diana laughed haughtily. “A candidate to join the Harpies, if ever I saw one.”

Charlotte drew a breath, then tried once more. “Recently, Will’s father and the boys added a new section to the house; then, Phoebe came to visit, bringing some of her own furnishings—but her father insists she be inoculated, and last week he ordered her back to Concord. Phoebe told Hannah she’d rather face the procedure here, and we thought you might appreciate her company while you’re recovering … so now, if you agree, she will be inoculated here in Bracebridge.”

“You could be right,” Miss Longfellow replied guardedly. “For while it was considerate of you to throw young Wainwright into the bargain, Charlotte, I don’t imagine your cowherd will make much of a confidant. This girl Phoebe—is she clever? Is she presentable?”

“She sketches well …”

“An artist? How fortunate! I have several admirers who are always after me for a portrait, or a lock of hair, or goodness knows what. All right, then, there shall be three of us—Lem, Phoebe, and myself—not counting your old kitchen cat, of course. Only imagine having a mother-in-law with such a face! I doubt if I could survive it, but I also doubt any of the Sloan boys will ever ask me to …”

Her brother’s laugh echoed among the trees, and a marked scurrying among the leaves caused his sister to look upward in alarm.

“I’m sure you’ll find Phoebe pleasant company,” Charlotte said soothingly, “for the two or three weeks you’re together.”

“But what if I should change my mind?”

“I’ve already explained,” Longfellow warned, leaning
farther toward the carriage, “that with the risk of contagion, all of you must stay in the house until the quarantine is over.”

“But what if they become
tiresome?”
Diana asked peevishly, realizing that three weeks might well seem a lifetime.

“Then you may spend your time by yourself, reading or writing, studying your French, or looking through the window. I only hope nothing has delayed Dr. Tucker. I asked him to come ahead this morning. Carlotta, you’ll meet him when you and I dine this afternoon at the inn. My sister, I fear, must sup tragically on gruel this evening.”

“I think not,” the patient-to-be replied flatly. “The idea of fasting, Richard, let alone purging, is not only repulsive but ridiculous! One needs a strong constitution to fight a fever. So I’ve heard, and so I shall instruct Dr. Tucker when I meet him. I will continue to eat heartily for as long as I can. And tomorrow is quite soon enough to dine with Hannah Sloan.”

“Then we shall be four, after all, for a Last Supper,” her brother relented. He stretched in the saddle to remove the kinks from his long frame. “By the way, did I mention I’ve planned an experiment?”

“Thank Heaven
this
time I won’t be in your house to be discomfited.”

“No … you’ll be in Mrs. Willett’s. But Tucker and I have discussed an inoculation for you, Diana, that is somewhat unusual. As a scientific study, the results promise to be quite interesting. I may even write them up myself.”

“What!” cried Diana, causing the animal ahead of her to lurch as it missed a step.

“Nothing too unpleasant, I assure you,” her brother returned, sensing that the time was not, perhaps, quite ripe for this particular discussion. “But we’ll talk it over later. Plenty of time before tomorrow.”

At that he urged his horse into a trot, anticipating
his dinner, while behind him the chaise carrying the two women—one of whom was now openly seething—rattled on toward the village of Bracebridge.

AN HOUR LATER
Mrs. Willett stood holding back the muslin curtain at her bedroom window, looking over the vegetables and herbs laid out below.

It had been a relief to find things running smoothly at home. Convinced that Lem Wainwright, at fifteen, could handle both dairy and barn, she’d left Hannah to look after only the house. Will Sloan, too, had helped—good practice, for during the quarantine he would take over several of Lem’s duties. Charlotte knew Will could be awfully foolish, and still had a tendency to frolic like a colt. Just two days before, she had heard, he’d raced the cart down the road and over a rock, breaking a wheel Lem had then arranged for Nathan to fix it in the inn’s forge across the road. So, everything was again in good order.

Though Lem and Hannah were obviously pleased to have her home, the sweetest salute had come from her old dog, whose joyous dance around her feet ended with an ecstatic roll in the grass, after which he herded her from the road to her door with a gale of howls. Once, when the farm held sheep, Orpheus had learned cunning, patience, and a disdain for that woolly species’ limited intelligence—all of which Charlotte suspected he also applied to most humans. But it was clear that he was glad to have his mistress back by his side.

She turned, letting the curtain drop. For the next few weeks, this familiar, low-beamed bedchamber would be Diana’s. Here the young woman would suffer the aches, the fever, the pocks everyone prayed would be mercifully mild. Charlotte suddenly felt a prickling of tears.

In the next room, four years before, Richard Longfellow had watched his fiancée die. And with Eleanor
Howard’s passing, Charlotte suffered the loss of her only sister. Then, in the same week, in this very room—in this bed—her own strong and healthy husband lay down, succumbing within hours to the same high fever and terrible choking. It was hardly Charlotte’s first encounter with death, for her mother had borne and lost two infants while she herself was a child. Her parents, too, had been taken a year before Eleanor and Aaron, during a summer that saw cholera in Bracebridge. Now, they all rested in a small family plot at the top of the orchard hill behind the farmhouse.

Young Mrs. Willett ran a hand over her quilted wedding coverlet as her thoughts shifted again to the bed’s next inhabitant. For Diana, the prospect of dying was hardly real. Deprived of her father when she had been too young to understand, Diana still enjoyed the rest of her family, including Richard, her mother, and her aunts. She’d lately spoken of inoculation as if it would be a test of wits, and wills—something to add to her list of social conquests. In short, Diana Longfellow had been introduced to Death, but she had not, as yet, lived with him on intimate terms. Despite her Boston airs, Richard’s worldly sister continued to exhibit an innocent bravado. For the moment, it was part of her charm.

Mrs. Willett now remembered that her neighbor was not a patient man, and most especially he was not patient when he was hungry. She quickly disrobed and put away the salt-and-pepper petticoat she’d worn. Standing in shift and stays, she decided to leave the pliant whalebone on for the afternoon. Bending over a painted china basin, she swiftly washed the road dust from her face and arms, then stepped into a skirt of light green linen, whose flax fibers had once grown nearby. She pulled on a low, elbow-frilled bodice of yellow cambric, recalling the day she’d dipped it into a kettle of boiled chamomile. Finally, after crossing and tucking a gossamer scarf thrown over her shoulders,
she buckled on shoes of red morocco leather (one of many gifts brought back from Longfellow’s travels) and hurried down the stairs.