The Rose Bargain

Mama and Mrs. Tuttle dress me in my sister’s Pact Parade gown, a confection of Swiss-dot chiffon and a bodice embroidered with English wildflowers, white thread on white fabric. It’s been altered to fit me, but I still feel like I’m wearing a Lydia Benton costume.

I sit on the small stool in front of my vanity, and Mama’s cool fingers wind my hair into a nest of braids at the back of my skull. Mrs. Tuttle helps her pin white roses, fresh from the garden, in my hair. The effect is beautiful, but no match for the diamond-encrusted tiaras and bandeaux the other girls will be wearing. Papa tells me not to concern myself with matters of finances, but how can I not when I overhear him and his business advisers arguing in the study all day long.

How could he have known that the land he bargained for the spring he turned eighteen had been so overfarmed it was barren? He was sure it grew plentiful produce when his father’s tenants farmed the field right next door, but he gave up his childhood memories in exchange for the plot, so he can’t be entirely sure. The tenant farmers have all packed up and left in search of literal greener pastures.

Others would have leaned on friends for advice, but Papa’s lack of childhood memories made it difficult to bond with the other men of the peerage. He doesn’t remember their boarding school stories or the tales of rugby victories in their youth. There’s a hollowness to him that others seem to be able to sense.