11
‘Flora, my dear, I thought we should speak about the coming summer.’
‘Yes, Mama.’ Flora stood in her mother’s boudoir as Rose sat in front of her triple-mirrored dressing table and clipped on her pearl earrings for dinner.
‘Please, sit down.’
Flora perched on a blue damask stool and waited for her mother to speak. Rose’s face was still as smooth and lovely as it must have been when she was a young debutante, but Flora could see the tightness around her mother’s lips and the slight crease of worry between her blonde brows.
‘As you know, Aurelia and I are leaving for London in a week’s time. And your father is taking his annual shooting holiday with his cousins in the Highlands. The question is, what to do with you.’ Rose paused and looked at Flora’s reflection in the mirror. ‘I am aware that you loathe the city and would not wish to accompany us to London.’
You haven’t actually asked me, she thought.
‘But by the same token,’ Rose continued, ‘women are not welcome with the men at the shoot up in Scotland. So, I have spoken to the staff, and your father and I believe it is best for you to stay here at the Hall. What do you say?’
Whatever conflicting emotions floated fast and furiously through her mind, Flora knew there was only one answer her mother wished to hear. ‘I would be happy to stay, Mama. After all, if I did not, I would worry for the health of my menagerie.’
‘Quite.’ A brief expression of relief crossed her mother’s face.
‘Although, of course, I will miss you, Aurelia and Papa.’
‘As we will miss you. But at least the matter is settled. I will inform your father of our decision.’
‘Yes, Mama. I shall leave you to ready yourself for dinner.’
‘Thank you.’
Flora stood up and walked towards the door. She was just about to open it when she saw her mother had turned round from the mirror to stare at her.
‘Flora?’
‘Yes, Mama?’
‘I love you very much. And I’m sorry.’
‘What for?’
‘I . . .’
Flora watched her mother visibly compose herself.
‘Nothing,’ Rose whispered. ‘Nothing.’
‘You look radiant,’ Flora pronounced a week later, as she stood on the doorstep with Aurelia, ready to wave her sister and their mother off to London.
‘Thank you,’ said Aurelia, giving a slight grimace. ‘I must confess, this velvet travelling dress feels so heavy and uncomfortable, and the corset is so tight I don’t think I shall be able to breathe until I arrive in London and can remove it!’
‘Well, it suits you beautifully, and I’m sure you will be the debutante of the Season.’ Flora hugged her tightly. ‘Do me proud, won’t you?’
‘Time to go, Aurelia.’ Rose appeared behind them on the doorstep. She kissed Flora on both cheeks. ‘Take care, my dear, and try not to run too wild around the district while we’re gone.’
‘I’ll do my best, Mama.’
‘Goodbye, darling Flora.’ Aurelia gave her one last embrace then blew her a kiss as they stepped into the old carriage that would take them to Windermere station, after which they would change at Oxenholme for the London-bound train.
Even to Flora’s unworldly eyes, their carriage looked like a relic. She knew it was much to her father’s chagrin that they could not afford to buy a motor car. Aurelia leant out of the window to wave at her as the horse clopped off down the drive. Flora returned the wave until the carriage had disappeared out of the front gates. Then she went back inside the shadowy house, which seemed to share her sense of abandonment. Her father had left for the Highlands the previous day and as her footsteps echoed through the hall, Flora felt sudden panic at the upcoming two months of near silence.
Upstairs in her room, she took Posy from her cage and stroked her silky ears for comfort, deciding this was practice for her future spinsterhood. She must embrace it.
Bereft of the routine she had adhered to since childhood, Flora had begun to create her own. Up with the lark in the morning, she’d dress hastily and, having dispensed with any idea of a formal breakfast taken alone in the dining room, she’d join Mrs Hillbeck, Sarah and Tilly in the kitchen for a cup of tea, fresh bread and jam and a gossip. Then she’d head out, cheese sandwiches wrapped in wax paper and stowed along with her sketching equipment in a large canvas satchel.
Flora had always thought she knew the countryside around her family home well, but it was only that summer that she truly discovered its miraculous beauty.
She hiked over the hills that surrounded Esthwaite Water, picking up her suffering skirts to scramble over the low dry-stone walls that had divided the farmland for centuries. With the dedication of a practised naturalist, she catalogued each treasure she came across, such as the small crop of purple saxifrage she found nestled on a crag. Her ears sought out the high cheeps of hawfinches and the trills of waxwings, and her fingers tenderly brushed over the valleys’ spiky grass and the rough stones, baking hot from the sun.
On one of the hottest days that June, Flora hiked along the shore of a cool, mirror-smooth tarn in the hope of finding a flower she had only ever set eyes on in her botany books. After hours of searching in the sweltering heat, she finally stumbled across the bright fuchsia-coloured heads of the Alpine catchfly, clinging to the mineral-rich rocks. Struck by the contrast of the frilled petals against their hardy home, Flora lay down on the sun-warmed ground to sketch it.
She must have fallen asleep in the drowsy heat, for she found herself waking as the soft fingertips of the setting sun rested on her shoulder. Rousing herself, she looked up through the branches of the Scots pines soaring above, her gaze catching the rare shape of a peregrine falcon perched on a high branch.
Not daring to so much as breathe, she studied its sleek plumage shimmering in the light and its curved beak raised into the breeze. For a moment, neither human nor bird moved. Then with a regal sweep of its wings, the falcon launched into the air, setting the branch aquiver, and soared up into the sunset.
She returned home at dusk, and went immediately to paint the brief sketch she had made of the falcon in full flight.