The Flowers of Time

Prologue: Leaving Little Tibet-3

The ballroom was sweltering. Jones went to push her hair off her face and then remembered and stopped. Her feet hurt in the ridiculous tiny shoes and the corset was pinching her. Her long gloves were making her elbows itch.

Although that might have been the conversation.

She gritted her teeth and nodded once again to the young man who was attempting to engage her interest with a tale of his morning’s fox hunt. “How fascinating!” she attempted to simper. Her simpering skills clearly needed work, because he flinched.

Luckily at that point, the music stopped. They bowed to each other with ill-disguised relief and then Jones remembered she was supposed to curtsy. Too late now. He held out an arm and she took it delicately in order to be escorted back to her chaperon.

She disguised a snort.

Fat lot of good Aunt Caroline would do to protect Jones’ virtue.

Despite herself though, she smiled at the older woman as she rejoined her small group of older ladies. Her escort, Mr Danvers, handed her off with a mutter about going to get her some punch.

She hated punch.

Aunt Caroline gave her a nervous smile. “Frances, my dear! You looked so graceful. Your partner was clearly extremely taken with you!”

Jones raised an eyebrow at her. Her aunt patted her arm in subtle admonishment and hissed. “Stop that! Nice young ladies do not raise their eyebrows! Especially one eyebrow at a time!” before replastering the smile on to her face.

This wasn’t working. She’d known it wouldn’t work and she’d told them it wouldn’t work. But she’d promised Pater that she’d try and she always kept her promises.

Danvers returned with the punch and presented it to her as if he had pulled a rabbit out of a hat and expected applause. She thanked him politely and he retreated, clearly as relieved as she that his obligation to her had been discharged.

“Aunt, I need some fresh air, I think. May I go out to the gardens? Or to the terrace?” The ballroom had been hot with the heat of hundreds of wax candles in the chandeliers when their party had arrived and as the space had filled and the dancing started, the temperature and the odour had risen and risen.

“My dear girl, of course you may. Do you wish for company?” Her ringlets trembled a little as she raised her lorgnettes and peered through them inquisitively. Aunt Caroline was positively cheering for Jones to be importuned into a compromising position by a likely young gentleman and so to have her married off before the season ended.

It was the point of the whole exercise.

“I’ll be fine, Aunt. Only for a few minutes.”

“I believe the terrace is that way.” Aunt Caroline pointed with her glasses and Jones began to make her way through the crush to the large open doors, attempting not to slop her punch onto her gloves. People were sorting out partners for the next dance and she avoided making eye contact with anyone as she moved forward through the jostling crowd. The musicians kept the music going…a piece by Bach, she thought. The music was actually outstanding, a small positive in what was an exceedingly trying evening.

It was a blessed relief to step into the cooler air of the terrace. There were liveried footmen standing on either side of each of the tall French windows that let on to the terrace. They didn’t return her small smile. She wasn’t comfortable here. Ignoring the servants might be the done thing in polite society, but it went against all her instincts.

She smoothed the fine silk of her dress down her middle in a nervous gesture she couldn’t quite suppress and stepped past them out in to the cool of the night. It wasn’t actually all that dark…there were lanterns at strategic intervals along the retaining wall that threw pools of soft light that didn’t quite meet between the sconces. Lady Nailsbourne had had her gardeners place potted trees and bushes all along the expanse. It was lovely. A perfect place for a romantic liaison, should she be seeking one.

Which she was not.

She stepped to the edge of the terrace. The retaining wall was slightly higher than waist height and she leaned against it, regardless of her fine dress, putting the insipid punch down at her elbow.

The formal gardens below had also been decked for the evening. There were pretty coloured lanterns at intervals and down among the tall hedges of the spiral maze she could see the little trail of lights intended to guide explorers in and out. It was lovely. Really lovely.

She had no desire at all to be out here among it. She shut her eyes and conjured up her talisman. The tall peaks and the cold smell of the hills and mountains she considered home. The camp…Pater’s camp, with their tents and the sorting-tables for their finds. Pater’s desk, spread with his papers, untidy but available for him to put his hand on whatever he wanted. She was hit with a wave of homesickness that made her feel physically nauseous and she swallowed.

“I say, excuse me, Madam? Are you feeling quite well?” A soft deep voice from beside her.

She opened her eyes. A gentleman was looking at her, concern on his face. “Thank you, I became a little overheated. I’m quite well,” she replied, smiling dismissively, snapping her fan open and glaring at him over it. The last thing she wanted was to be drawn into conversation, however benign.

The gentleman, however, did not retreat. “Are you sure? Can I escort you anywhere?” he asked.

“No, thank you. I simply wanted a few moments out of the crush,” she replied with honesty.

He smiled at her. “I came out for the same reason. But your friends…?”

It was unusual for a lady to be outside unescorted, she supposed. She was fed up with the whole palaver all of a sudden. “I assured my aunt that I was in no imminent danger from stepping out onto the terrace alone,” she retorted, clapping the fan closed again and half turning away.

He was taken aback. “I do beg your pardon, Madam,” he said. “I did not mean to intrude.” He went to step away.

She sighed. She didn’t want to offend him. He seemed…benign. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Please, don’t feel you have to go. I’m altogether out of sorts and sorry for myself. Please accept my apology, that was rude.”

He looked a little startled at her frankness and then smiled a small smile. “Apology accepted.” He gave a little bow. “Since we are not standing on ceremony, please, let me introduce myself. Henry Merton, at your service.”

“Very pleased to meet you, Mr Merton. Frances Jones, at yours.” She held out a hand for him to shake before forgetting she shouldn’t do that and withdrawing it.

“Frances Jones…” Merton repeated. “Do you, by any chance, are you Franklin Jones’ daughter?”

She looked at him more closely before replying. She recognised him. “Henry Merton…” she said slowly. “You travelled with us. Up above Srinagar toward Gilgit and Kashgar. Fifteen or twenty years ago.”

“Eighteen or nineteen, I think,” he supplied. “I was nineteen or twenty. You must have been…”

“Eleven, I think,” she said. “It was the year my father was debating whether to send me home to go to school. It would have been in sixty-two. I remember you. You had an interest in the old temples.”

“Yes!” His face lit up with excitement. “Do you remember the one that we found in the valley with the waterfalls? I will never forget it! I have often tried to capture it on paper, with variable success.”

She responded to his enthusiasm with enthusiasm of her own. “Yes! There were so many interesting carvings. We went back five or six years ago and I was able to draw them properly! But I have not brought my notes with me on this trip.”

They reminisced happily for a while. Then, “It was down to your father that I started on the path that has led me where I am today,” he said. “I collect plants for the new gardens at Kew, and for the Physick Garden at Chelsea. That sojourn in the Himalaya was what really set me on course. He is such a knowledgeable man, about the entire area.”

She nodded as he spoke, biting her lip and not correcting him. Pater had known everything about everything. Let her pretend for a moment he was still alive and waiting for her at home.

However eventually she had to speak of it. “But what are you doing in England, Miss Jones?” Merton asked. “I understood that you travelled and worked with your father?”

Gossip had reached home, then, Jones thought, grimly. Aunt Caroline would be upset. Not entirely up to date, though. She supplied it. “My father died not long ago,” she said as smoothly as she could. “He fell ill near Leh and died in the gompa a little while after, two years ago now.” It didn’t come out quite as coolly as she had been aiming for. Prompted to unladylike honesty by the dusk and his genuine interest she added, “I promised him I’d come home and try the marriage mart.”

He let out a snort of amusement at her frankness and then said, “I’m so sorry, Madam. He was a wonderful man and a great scholar.”

“Thank you,” she replied. “I plan to carry on his work…however, he wanted me to give society one season, here with Aunt Caroline.” She grimaced. “I am not finding it congenial. I feel like a fish out of water.”

“I can imagine. Is this your first time here at home?”

She nodded. “Yes. We decided that I wouldn’t return to school. I am rather uneducated in the ways of proper society, I am finding.” She twisted her mouth. “Not that I am much bothered. My aunt is finding it hard, though. I don’t honestly know what Pater was thinking…I am absolutely not marriage material, but I promised him and so here I am.”

Talking to him was a relief…She didn’t have to simper and remember what she should or shouldn’t say.

“Tell me about your work at Kew?” she changed the subject, sick of her own problems.

He was glad to oblige, and the conversation wandered between there and the heated greenhouses at the Chelsea Physick Garden that he had recently seen.

It was fascinating work he was doing, and they were both slightly disappointed to be interrupted when a younger man in military dress arrived beside them with a young woman on his arm. “Merton! Miss Merton wanted some air and we saw you out here,” he greeted them.

Merton turned. “Miss Jones…may I present Captain Bennett Carruthers of the East India Company and my sister, Miss Edith Merton? Carruthers, Edie, Miss Frances Jones. Franklin Jones’ daughter. We met in the Hindu Kush in the year sixty-two.”

Jones bowed. “Carruthers, Miss Merton. Delighted.”

They all looked at her rather oddly and she realised she had forgotten herself again and should have curtsied. Damn. She’d told Aunt Caroline this wasn’t going to work and she’d make a fool of herself, but her aunt had been determined and she had promised Pater.

Edith Merton was watching her curiously. She was a petite young woman about ten years Jones’ junior who shared her brother’s brown eyes and unpowdered brown hair. She was wearing a pale pink and cream confection with little cream flowers embroidered on the pink gown and a cream petticoat that reversed the pattern with pink embroidery. She was a beauty. The cream of her embroidery set off the cream of her skin.

“Miss Jones,” she said, and dipped a perfect curtsy. “How lovely to meet you! Henry sometimes speaks about the time he spent travelling with you and your father. In fact…” she glanced at her brother, “…we are taking our own trip to the Himalaya this year, are we not, Henry?”

Merton nodded. “Yes, indeed. I was about to tell Miss Jones. Between them, Mr Banks at Kew and Mr Forsyth at Chelsea have commissioned us to travel into the mountains and gather plants for the collection.”

“How exciting! So you are also a botanist, Miss Merton? And you, Captain Carruthers?” Jones turned to include the second man in the conversation.

“Not I, Miss Jones. However, I will be accompanying the party. I am tasked with making some maps of possible trade routes through the mountains for the Company.” Carruthers turned to Miss Merton and gave a small bow. “Miss Merton is a talented artist, however, and illustrates her brother’s botanical studies among other reference works.”

Edith blushed. “Really, Captain Carruthers,” she dissembled.

“How fascinating!” And they were off again. It was a relief to be able to talk about things that mattered rather than the endless round of social chit-chat and gossip to which she’d been subjected for the last three months. And been the object of, behind the ladies’ hands.

Reluctantly, as the dancing came to an end and the evening drew to a close, she allowed Merton to escort her back to her aunt. Aunt Caroline eyed him speculatively as she introduced them all. “Mr. and Miss Merton and their friend are travelling out to India on a botany and mapping expedition,” she explained. “They have invited me to look around the Kew and Chelsea Gardens whilst we are in town. I would be delighted to, if it’s convenient for your plans, Aunt Caroline?”

“How lovely!” Aunt Caroline was both intrigued by the invitation to the gardens and by the person issuing it. “Please, Mr Merton, Captain Carruthers, do call at Penel House tomorrow and we can arrange it! When do you plan to travel out?”

“When the weather allows, Madam. We are nearly ready.” Carruthers dipped his head and looked at his boots briefly. “We only await Merton’s trunks of books now.” He looked up again and met Merton’s good-natured grin.

“That is a dreadful fiction, Lady Romilly. I am quite ready. We are waiting on the captain’s mapping equipment.” Clearly the two men were old friends.

“And do you travel out as well, Miss Merton?” Aunt Caroline turned to the silent young woman.

Edith Merton bobbed a little curtsy. “I do, Lady Romilly. I plan to help my brother by sketching his botanicals. I am most happy to have made Miss Jones’ acquaintance this evening and to hear first-hand about her travels.”

Aunt Caroline paled slightly and Jones stepped forward. “I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow and arranging a trip to Kew,” she said, before poor Aunt Caroline could think of a retort.