Kimberlee Conway Ireton

As I trimmed the branches of a boxwood back to its intended swan shape, the quiet snip snip of my clippers, the distant scritch scritch of my father’s rake on the sand-and-gravel path, and the buzzing of nearby bees were the only sounds in the estate garden.

Then Henry came through the garden gate with yet another of the simpering girls his mother had been inviting to the house lately. I heard them before I saw them, for the girl laughed loudly, as if Henry were clever as the king’s court jester. She was either very nervous or very stupid. Possibly both.

I ducked behind the topiary and began to sidle away, keeping bushes and flowers always between me and the two of them, trying to reach the greenhouse unseen, but their progress through the garden was faster than mine. I bent down and scooted in front of a row thick with purple irises.

“This is pretty,” the girl said, her voice just on the other side of the iris bed. I froze. “What’s it called?” She fingered the petals of a red peony that I’d forced in the greenhouse and brought outside.

“Er,” said Henry. “I can never remember. It starts with a P, I think.”

I rolled my eyes. Henry knew the name of every flower in this garden as well as I did.

“Pansy?” he said. “Periwinkle?” He looked right at me, and I knew the irises weren’t hiding me as well as I’d hoped. “Rose?”

“Rose doesn’t start with P!” The girl laughed. “And this isn’t a rose anyway.”

“No,” said Henry, waving in my direction. “This is Rose, the undergardener’s daughter and my dearest friend.”

I straightened, resisted the impulse to cover my cheek with my hand.

“Rose, this is Lady Tessa.”

I curtsied, deeply. I had no wish to offend her—it wasn’t her fault Henry’s mother was parading future brides through the manor house—but when I stood up, I saw that the introduction itself was an offense. Half a dozen emotions flickered in her eyes, and none of them was kindness.

“What kind of flower is this?” she demanded.

I looked at Henry. He returned my gaze with wide-eyed innocence.

“It’s a peony,” I said.

“Peony?” Lady Tessa wrinkled her nose. “What an ugly name.” She shrugged slightly. “But I suppose it’s better to be a beautiful flower with an ugly name than an ugly flower with a beautiful name.” She gave me a fake smile. “Don’t you think, Rose?”

Heat flooded my cheeks until I thought my whole face must be as red as the birthmark that bloomed beneath my eye.

Henry coughed, like he’d choked on his own tongue, and did not look at me.

In as cold a voice as I could muster, I said, “I beg you will excuse me. I must return to my work.” Then I turned, without even curtsying to the odious Lady Tessa, swept my skirt behind me, and went to the farthest side of the garden to trim another topiary.

I imagined every twig that fell to the ground was one of Lady Tessa’s curls. I trimmed the topiary until she was bald.

***

The next day, Henry found me in the greenhouse. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” he said.

I shrugged and continued watering an orchid. He was silent for a moment.

“I’ve spoken with your father,” he said, “and you get to come with me.”

“Come with you?” I moved to another orchid and tilted the watering can into the shallow dish beneath it.

“Lady Tessa is ill. Or so she says. And my mother ordered a beautiful picnic for us before she and my father left with Lord and Lady Templeton. They’re visiting Gateshead today.”

I moved to the next orchid. “And you’re telling me this because?”

“Because I have a pair of ponies and a picnic, dimwit, and I want you to come with me.”

I grinned at him. “Really?”

“Of course really. I’ll enjoy your company much better than Lady Tessa’s anyway. I daresay I’m rather glad she’s indisposed.”

I was rather glad myself.

“Your father said as soon as you’d finished with the orchids, you could come. So I thought I could help you here, and then you could help me eat all this food my mother ordered.”

“It sounds like you’re getting the better end of this deal.” I smiled and shoved a watering can at him. “But I suppose it will have to do.”

***

A little later, Henry helped me into the low phaeton, flicked the reins, and we set out “to lands unknown.”

“Lands unknown?” I said. “Are there any such places around here?”

“Well, unknown to us.” Then he looked at me and whispered, “We’re leaving the estate.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“But—”

Henry had never left the estate before, not to my knowledge, not to his own. Rumors flitted about from time to time, but no one really knew why the young master was never sent to school or allowed to visit neighbors or go up to town—not even the young master himself. “Henry, are you sure this is a good idea?”

“We’re 18, Rose, and neither of us—”

“We’re not 18, not yet.”

“Very well, Miss Meticulous. Allow me to be more precise. I am three days shy of 18, and you are two months shy, and neither of us has ever left the grounds of Aurora House. It’s time we did.”

“What’s gotten into you? You’re usually so…” I searched for a delicate way to put it.

“Docile?” he said. “Obedient? Dutiful? Boring?”

“All but the last. I’ve never found you boring.”

“Well, you’re the only one, then. Not that I mind. I find these girls my mother’s parading before me as endlessly boring as they find me.”

“You’re not boring, Henry. They’re just too stupid to recognize your inherent brilliance.”

He laughed. “‘Inherent brilliance.’ I’m going to have to use that myself—it makes me sound like the sun, don’t you think?”

He was the sun, is what I thought. We rode on in silence, through the woods that bordered the estate until we reached the gate that led beyond them. It was padlocked shut.

“Now what?” I said.

“Never fear. Sir Brilliance is here.” Henry handed me the reins and jumped from the phaeton. He pulled a small thin piece of metal out of his breast pocket, inserted it into the padlock, fiddled it around, and the lock clicked open. He removed it and swung the gate wide.

“Where’d you learn that and how come you never taught me?” I said.

He grinned as he hopped back into the phaeton. “Oh, you’d be surprised the things I know.”

“Is that so?” I handed him the reins.

“Yes. I am a bottomless pool of surprises.”

I laughed.

When we found a little shady grove that looked out onto a pond, Henry pulled on the reins and stopped the horses. “Well, how do you like this? The world beyond the estate looks just like the estate.”

“Disappointing, isn’t it? I thought there’d at least be ghosties and ghoulies and long legged beasties.” I bumped him with my elbow. “And things that go bump—”

He laughed. “Things that go bump in the day just aren’t as frightening somehow.”

He spread out a cloth on the grass under a birch tree, part of it in the shade, part in the sun. Then he pulled two hampers of food out of the phaeton, and I helped him set the covered dishes out on the blanket. Roast beef and ham, four kinds of cheese, bread and mustard, early tomatoes from the kitchen greenhouse and tender baby greens. Enough for four grown men. To drink there was milk and pressed cider mulled with spices.

We ate and talked till we were full and then lay down on the cloth and stared up through the pale green leaves at the sky and talked some more. And then we just lay there, quietly, listening to the birds chirping and the rustle of the breeze in the leaves.

Though he was my best friend, I was intensely aware that he was also a man, or nearly so, and that we were farther from home than we’d ever been—and alone. I smiled up at the sky and closed my eyes.

When I opened them, Henry was watching me.

“What?” I said. The look on his face made my heart pound.

He shrugged. “Nothing, really. It’s just—”

“Just what?” I pushed myself into a sitting position.

He stood. “Come on. Let’s go for a little explore.” He reached down and I placed my hands in his, though I felt certain he’d feel my pulse beating in my fingers, and he helped me to my feet. I thought maybe, just maybe, he held onto my hands for a fraction of a second longer than absolutely necessary.

He let go of my hands. So maybe not.

We wandered along the edge of the pond. Henry picked up rocks from the shore and skipped them along the surface of the water. He picked out a perfectly shaped one and handed it to me. I tossed it the way he’d taught me, but it plunked into the water and sank. We exchanged a rueful sidelong glance.

“Impressive,” Henry said.

“Indeed,” I said. “I aim to please.”

Henry stuck his finger in his ear and wiggled it around. “I’m sorry; did you say you aim to plink?”

“Very funny.”

When we reached the far side of the pond, there was a low stone wall. We climbed over it and walked across a field to a
turnstile covered with pink and white flowers blooming riotously.

“These are pretty,” Henry said. “I’ve never seen them before. Do you know what they are?”

I looked at them, touched the leaves. I’d never seen one myself, but my father had pictures of them in one of his books. The queen of flowers, he called them. “They’re roses,” I said, and felt a sense of foreboding. I’d never seen my namesake flower before. They were forbidden on the grounds of the estate.

“Are you sure? Mother always said roses were ugly flowers, and that’s why we don’t grow them.”

I put my hand on my cheek where a large red rose bloomed on my skin. Though I’d seen the pictures in my father’s book, I always thought they would be ugly, too, like this blossom on my face. “They’re roses,” I said. “I’m certain.”

Henry smiled. Then he looked at me, and his smile faded. “Don’t,” he said and reached up to pull my hand away from my face. He stroked the rose on my skin with his thumb, and my heart began to race like a fox fleeing the hounds. “You’ve no need to hide it. Not from me. Not ever.”

I could only stare at him.

He winked. “It’s perfect, really,” he said and reached to pluck one of the blossoms from the bush. “A rose for my— Ouch!” He pulled his hand back and sucked on his index finger.

“Be careful,” I said, laughing at him, albeit a little breathlessly, “they have thorns.”

“Thanks for the warning.” He gave a little laugh, too, but it sounded hollow. He reached for me, put his hand on my shoulder, heavily, like he could barely hold his arm up. “Rose,” he said, and his voice was heavy, too.

“Henry? What’s the matter?”

“I feel so strange.” His face was suddenly pale.

“Henry?”

“Rose.” His voice was a bare whisper, and then he collapsed against me. I staggered back into the roses, pricking myself all over, and slid down to a sitting position, Henry’s body folding to the ground beside me.

I touched his face. It was cool. I put my hand on his chest. His heartbeat was steady and slow. I lay him on the ground and leaned my face against his. He breathed slowly, but evenly.

“Henry!” I shook him gently. “Henry, please! Wake up!” But he did not stir. I stared down at him, horrified and confused. I had to get him back to the estate, back to the house.

I bent down and tried to lift him, but I could not. Though I tried again and again, I could not lift him. Finally, I wrapped his arms around my neck and hoisted him onto my back. He was a full head taller than I, and I could not quite carry him; his feet dragged behind me. But I blessed my father for the work he had given me all my life. It made me strong. Lady Tessa would never have been able to carry him. She probably wouldn’t even have tried.

Bent half over, I dragged Henry back through the field, muscled him over the low wall, and then hauled him back to the phaeton. Getting him in was the hardest part. The phaeton shook, which spooked the horses a little. They neighed unhappily. “Shh, shh,” I sang to them. “It’s all right. It’s all right.” But it wasn’t all right. It was all wrong. What was the matter with Henry? And how would I explain to his mother that we’d gone off the estate grounds? How would I explain what had happened to him, when I wasn’t even sure myself?

I flicked the reins. What happened to me didn’t matter. It was Henry I needed to focus on, and he needed a doctor, at the least.

***

When I got back to Aurora House, it was strangely quiet. I pulled up in front of the house, but no one came to greet me. I dared not knock on the front door, so I ran around to the servants’ entrance. In the kitchen, Antoinette was asleep at the table, her dark curls spilling out from under her cap. I shook her gently. She did not wake. In the washroom, two scullery maids lay sleeping. I shook them, too, less gently. They did not wake either. My heart pounded in my chest.

I walked through the silent corridors, from room to room, and everywhere I went, servants slept. Even Kenton, the butler, was asleep near the main door. The quiet was unnerving. I pulled the door open and fled outside. It was bright, and I realized there were no lights in the house. All the candles and lamps had been snuffed.

I ran down the steps to the phaeton, and to Henry. He lay there still, his pale face likely burning in the late afternoon sun. I managed to pull him out of the phaeton without dropping him on his head, and then, hoisting him onto my back once more, I dragged him up the steps into the silent house.

I lay Henry on a chaise in the large foyer. “What is wrong with you?” I whispered. My voice sounded loud in the quiet house. I smoothed his hair away from his forehead. “I’ll fetch some water for you.” But I doubted water would help. Some enchantment was at work here, and I did not need water. I needed information.

As I returned from the kitchen with a glass of water, a loud screech pierced the silence. My heart leapt into my throat and I nearly dropped the glass. When I stepped into the entrance hall, Lady Tessa stood just inside the door, her mouth open, her eyes wild. She screamed again when she saw me.

“What is going on?” she demanded. “Why are all the servants asleep?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. What I want to know is why you’re not asleep. Why I’m not asleep. Everyone else is.”

She came the rest of the way into the hall — and recognized me. “What are you doing in the house? I thought you were a gardener. Shouldn’t you be out pruning roses or something?”

I ignored her. I knelt beside Henry, lifted his head, and tipped the glass against his lips. Water dribbled down his chin.

Lady Tessa stood at my shoulder. “If he won’t drink that, I will. I’m parched.”

“There’s water in the kitchen,” I said, setting the glass down and wiping Henry’s chin with my sleeve. “Since there aren’t any servants to wait on you, you’ll have to get it yourself.”

I could only imagine the look on her face. Outrage, probably. I stood. “If you’ll excuse me,” I said, “I need to go see if my parents are all right.” I hoped they were not sleeping, too, but I had seen no one on the grounds and feared this enchantment, whatever it was, had taken them, too.

“No!” Lady Tessa said. “Don’t leave me here!” She looked around wildly, at Henry’s sleeping form on the sofa, at Kenton resting his head on a small table, at the doorman sprawled out on the floor. “I can’t be here alone,” she whispered. “They look like they’re dead.”

“They’re not dead. They’re asleep. But you can come with me if you’d rather.”

“I want my father,” she said and sank down on the chair opposite me. “I want to go home.” She began to weep.

I stared at her a long moment. She had two small leaves in her hair, which was decidedly askew. “Here,” I said, picking up the glass and placing it in her hand.

“What in the devil is going on?” a loud voice bellowed from outside. “Come out at once!”

I looked through the open door. At the bottom of the steps, Mr. and Mrs. Welhouse and Lord and Lady Templeton sat in an open carriage.

“I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Welhouse said. “It’s unlike the servants not to come promptly—”

“Mamma!” Lady Tessa cried, thrusting the glass at me and running out the door and down the steps. “Pappa! Oh, the most horrid thing has happened!” She began to sob. I rolled my eyes and set the glass back on the table next to Henry.

“Good gracious, child!” Lady Templeton said. “Pull yourself together!”

Lord Templeton jumped out of the carriage and met Tessa on the fourth step. “What is it, darling?”

“George, really,” Lady Templeton said, “you humor her too much.”

Tessa sobbed against her father’s chest, her words incoherent as she tried to explain that everyone was sleeping.

“I’m dreadfully sorry,” Lady Templeton said to Mrs. Welhouse. “She’s never had hysterics before. I don’t know what’s come over her.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s worked the devil with my servants,” Mr. Welhouse said as he hopped out of the carriage. “They’re obviously much too busy to come meet us.” He handed the ladies down.

I stood in the open door of the house and tried to decide if I wanted Mrs. Welhouse to upbraid me on the steps or in the foyer. As I vacillated, the whole party began to walk up the steps.

“I think she’s saying something about everyone being asleep?” Lord Templeton said, his arm around Tessa’s shoulders.

Mrs. Welhouse’s face turned gray. She grabbed her skirts and ran up the steps. “Henry!” she shouted. “Henry!”

I jumped aside and retreated to the shadows behind the door.

“Henry!” Mrs. Welhouse shouted again. Then she saw him, lying on the chaise. “No!” She flung herself down beside him. “Oh no no no.”

Mr. Welhouse hurried behind her. He knelt at her side and drew her into his arms.

“How?” she moaned. “How did this happen? I had all the roses removed. I never let him leave the estate.” She leaned her head against her husband’s shoulder. “We only had three more days.”

Mr. Welhouse rubbed her back.

“I tried so hard.”

“I know. I know. No one can blame you, dear.”

“But it is my fault. If I hadn’t turned that gypsy woman away—” She looked at Henry and placed her hand on his chest. “Oh my dear boy,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

The Templetons stood in the doorway. I stayed hidden in the shadows.

“Will someone please tell us what in God’s name is going on?” Lord Templeton demanded.

Mr. and Mrs. Welhouse turned helpless, stricken faces toward the Templetons. Then they looked at each other.

“He had to have left the estate,” Mrs. Welhouse said. “It’s the only explanation.”

I suddenly realized why the Templetons and Mr. and Mrs. Welhouse and I were awake: we hadn’t been on the estate when Henry touched the rose. And that meant Tessa hadn’t been on the estate, either.

Mrs. Welhouse realized this the same time I did, for she slowly turned her head toward Tessa. Her face hardened. “You!” she said. “You took him off the estate!”

Tessa’s eyes widened. She shook her head.

“Where’d you go?” Mrs. Welhouse stood and rushed toward the girl. “Tell me!” She grabbed Tessa’s shoulders and shook her. “Where did you go? Where did you take my boy?”

“Nowhere! I didn’t go anywhere with him,” Tessa wailed. “I swear it.”

“Liar!” Mrs. Welhouse cried. “You took him—”

“No!” Tessa said. “I didn’t. I didn’t take him anywhere.”

Though I did not like her, I could not let her be blamed for this. I suspected she would have trouble enough explaining where she’d been without adding Henry’s strange illness to the tale.

“She speaks the truth.” I stepped out from behind the door. “Henry was with me.”

Mrs. Welhouse turned her head. “You!” She stared. “You? But I forbade him to see you.”

I looked at Henry. A bottomless well of surprises, indeed. Here I had thought him so docile and obedient.

“Lady Tessa was,” I paused, “ill. So Henry invited me to share the picnic you had prepared. He—” I shrugged. “He was determined to leave the estate.” I looked at the floor and then at Mrs. Welhouse. “Though I confess I did not try so hard as I should have to stop him. I did not understand why you never let him leave.”

She stared at me still.

“We found wild roses growing on a turnstile. He tried to pluck one. He pricked his finger on a thorn.”

“No.” Mrs. Welhouse’s voice was a mere whisper. She looked back at Henry and closed her eyes. “We were so close. So close.” Mr. Welhouse put his arm around her.

I looked at Henry. I thought I knew how to wake him. I hoped I knew. I took a step toward him.

Mrs. Welhouse opened her eyes and took a step toward me. “Leave,” she said, her voice icy. “Now. And don’t ever come back.”

I hesitated a moment, then turned and walked out the front door and down the steps.

***

But I did not leave the estate, merely the manor house. I sat alone in my parents’ kitchen. They were both there, sound asleep, like everyone else. When it grew dark, I ate a leftover biscuit, a piece of cheese, and some greenhouse tomatoes that lay on the table. Then I went outside, walked back toward the manor house, and watched the windows, waiting for every flicker of light to disappear.

When the last candle appeared to have been snuffed out for the night, I crept toward the servants’ entrance and eased the door open. I stood just inside, listening. I thought I heard footfalls in some distant part of the house. I sat at the kitchen table, waiting for total silence. I fell asleep.

I woke with a start, horrified that I’d slept. Gray light seeped in through the windows. I lit a stump of a candle and hurried to the main hall. Of course Henry was not there. His father no doubt had carried him up to his room. I crept up the main stairs, quickly, quietly, and along a corridor. It had been years since I had been to Henry’s rooms—his mother had long ago forbidden me entrance to the house—but I remembered the way. I wondered when she had forbidden Henry to see me, and smiled in the darkness. He had defied her.

I stood outside Henry’s room. Slowly, silently, I turned the knob and pushed the door open. I slipped inside, closing the door silently behind me.

I crossed the thick carpet to Henry’s bed and stood beside it, looking down at him, watching his face in the flickering light of my candle. I set the candle on the table by the bed and took a deep breath. What if this did not work? What if I was wrong?

No one will know, I told myself.

But I would know. I touched my cheek as I stood there, staring down at him, fear and hope warring in me, until the room went suddenly dark. My candle had burned out.

I shivered in the darkness and looked toward the window, waiting for my eyes to adjust.

I was an undergardener’s daughter. I was common. I was marked with a red rose. His mother loathed the sight of me. None of that would change, even if I woke him.

Still, I had to try.

I looked down at him, his face barely visible in the pale grey light of early morning. I stroked his cheek with my hand. “Henry,” I said, “I’m frightened. I’m frightened this won’t work. And I’m frightened it will.”

Then I leaned over and kissed him. I’d imagined this moment often enough, but always in my daydreams Henry was awake. Always, he kissed me back. But now, though his lips were soft, they were still. He did not respond to my kiss. He did not return it.

The door of the bedroom flew open. I leaped away from the bed. Mrs. Welhouse stood in the doorway, her face flickering in and out of shadow as the flame of the candle she held bounced wildly.

She crossed the room and held the candle up to my face. “What are you doing here? I told you to leave!”

Henry had not woken. My heart squeezed like a fist and tears filled my throat. There was nothing for me here now. Henry slept. My parents slept.

“I came to say good-bye to him,” I said, my voice thick. I looked down at Henry one last time, reached out, and touched his hair. I wanted to say I love you, but I would not utter those words in front of his mother. I said, “Good-bye, my friend.”

Then I slipped past Mrs. Welhouse, around the foot of the bed, and across the room.

“Rose?”

I stopped. Turned. Stared at the bed.

“Henry!” Mrs. Welhouse cried.

“Rose,” Henry said.

I ran back across the room, grinning like a fool. “You’re awake!”

“Of course I’m awake. It’s morning. That’s what people do in the morning. They wake up.”

“Oh Henry!” Mrs. Welhouse knelt beside the bed, across from where I stood. “You’re awake! You’re awake!”

“Yes, Mother,” Henry said. “I believe we’ve established that.” He looked back at me. “What we haven’t established is what
on earth Rose is doing in my bedroom at this ungodly hour.”

“She was leaving,” Mrs. Welhouse said. “Weren’t you, Rose?”

I leaned over the bed. He was so beautiful, lying there looking up at me. “I was waking you up,” I said softly, but not so softly that Mrs. Welhouse couldn’t hear.

“That’s quite enough,” she said, pushing herself to her feet.

Henry ignored her. He smiled at me. “I see,” he said. “And how did you do that?”

“Henry,” I said, feeling suddenly shy.

“Please,” he whispered, “I think I know, but show me again.”

“Enough!” Mrs. Welhouse said. “Rose, as I just said, was leaving.”

“No, Mother,” Henry said, sitting up. “Rose is staying.” He looked at me, his smile gone, his face hopeful. “You are staying, aren’t you, Rose?”

I smiled. “Yes,” I said. “I’m staying.”

He grasped my hand and smiled as Aurora House slowly woke up.

© 2010 Kimberlee Conway Ireton