Chapter 12
Verbena stuck her bonneted head out of the carriage window and took in the sight that greeted their arrival.
The grounds of Plas Tan were beautifully situated on a slice of land surrounded on three sides by dense forests, making it a cool respite in the midst of the summer heat.
In the distance, behind the house, the sounds and smells of the Welsh coastline were readily apparent: seabirds and the shush of waves, the sharpness of salt in the air.
As the carriage drew closer, Verbena spied a dozen or so people, men and women both, engaged in an afternoon’s painting session.
They were arranged near a small pond in a loose knot of easels, canvases, and stools upon which the artists perched.
Their subject was a nude man who stood upon a plinth, which was shocking in and of itself.
What was even more shocking was the model’s identity. Once the carriage halted, Verbena saw it was Lord Byron himself. He was standing with one hip hitched higher than the other, a large grin on his face.
“Oh, heavens,” Flora said, groaning behind her unfurled lace fan. She clustered close against Verbena’s back, hooking her chin on her shoulder to get her own eyeful. “What is he doing here?”
“Standing naked, it seems,” said Miles, poking his head out of another window.
He was soon joined by étienne, who seemed unhurried to get his own peek. “Very continental,” he said. “I feel right at home.”
Byron must have heard their voices on the wind, for he turned and gave them a cheery wave.
The group of painters looked in their direction accordingly.
One of them, an older woman, rose to make her way toward them.
Verbena perceived this to be one of the ladies of Plas Tan she had heard so much about.
She wore the strangest costume Verbena had ever seen: a man’s riding jacket, all in black, paired with a voluminous black skirt.
Perched on her head of silver hair was a black top hat.
Verbena exited the carriage with the help of Miles and étienne, gazing up at the house’s facade in surprise as she did so.
She had expected a modest cottage, but this was something more akin to a manor.
The Gothic structure was built of hewn stone with windows of intricate stained glass.
Sunlight gleamed across the patterns of blue and green and purple, calling to mind a fairy-tale castle.
The windows did not depict the usual biblical scenes, but rather classical ones: Hercules with his lion skin.
A ship beset by long-haired Sirens. The siege of Troy, clever wooden horse included.
A woman sitting on a rocky shore with scores of other girls arrayed before her, listening intently as she pontificated.
This one, Verbena stared at harder than the rest. It strummed a familiar chord somewhere in her breast.
“Sappho,” came a reverent whisper from behind her. Verbena turned to see Flora, now also descended from the carriage, her own awed gaze fixed on the same window. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
Before Verbena could admit her own ignorance—for she really couldn’t remember that myth for the life of her—the woman in the man’s coat reached the gravel drive.
“Miles, my dear!” She gathered her huge black skirts and rushed to greet him. Her age was difficult to pinpoint, given the lack of usual markers in clothing and bearing Verbena would expect, but the wrinkles adorning her pale face, especially around her smile, spoke of a long life.
“Aunt Bette,” Miles said, elated. He paused in unloading the baggage to catch her in a warm embrace. “Lord, it’s been ages.”
“I’m the one who should be saying so! Look at you.” Said aunt, whose voice shared Miles’s gentle brogue, held him at arm’s length to study his person. “And how fares Peeblewick? Tell me everything.”
“It is much changed since you last saw it,” Miles said. “For the better, I hope. When will you come visit me there? That is what I want to know.”
During this happy reunion, Verbena noticed another woman exit the manor and approach at a more sedate pace, leaning on a cane carved into a sort of swirl.
She had a light brown complexion and wore a man’s tailcoat like Bette’s along with a pair of breeches.
Her head was scandalously without a hat or bonnet, and her jet hair, shot through with strands of silver, flowed unencumbered down her back.
“You must be the ladies Miles told us so much about in his last letter,” she said as she came within speaking distance. “Which of you is Lily and which is Rose?”
“Oh! Erm, I am Verbena, Verbena Montrose, and this is Flora Witcombe.” Verbena gestured as Flora raised a hand in greeting.
She would have expected Miles to make these introductions (and hopefully dispel the awkwardness that came with their hostess misplacing their names), but he seemed too wrapped up in speaking with his beloved aunt.
The other woman’s dark eyes sparkled with mischief. “I’m only teasing. Of course I know you, Miss Witcombe. We have a standing appointment with the bookseller in the nearest village. He provides your latest poetry like clockwork, albeit several weeks behind London.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Flora. A pretty blush painted her cheeks.
Their hostess turned to Verbena. “And Miles tells us you, Miss Montrose, are eager to delve into your work! Well, you won’t find a better place to write than Plas Tan.
I’m Anne, by the way. Miss Kirkwell, if you crave formality.
I hope you won’t.” She reached out a hand and shook Verbena’s limp one.
Verbena forced herself out of her shock and put some vigor into the handshake.
This woman was opening her home to her and her friends.
She could not be rude, as much as she wanted to stare.
She’d never met anyone like Anne Kirkwell, or Bette McDonald, for that matter.
In matters of dress and comportment, they were more akin to bachelors than elderly ladies.
“I am certain I will find creative energies in this place,” Verbena said. “Already I feel suffused with—well, I’m not even sure. A wonderful zeal, perhaps.” Her gaze darted to Flora as she spoke the last, but Flora was turned the other way, taking in the sprawling grounds with wide eyes.
As Anne moved on to introduce herself to étienne, greet Miles, and direct them to the appropriate rooms, Verbena edged closer to Flora.
“I hope you do not regret accompanying me,” she whispered.
Flora looked at her with wide eyes. “How could I? Look at this place. It’s heaven on earth.” She smiled, a soft thing.
Verbena’s breath caught. She ached to form a reply, but their hostesses bustled over before she could.
“All right, girls,” said Aunt Bette. “Let the gentlemen get your things all settled. Here, let me give you the tour.” She led them across the grounds, following a winding stone path that badly needed weeding.
The fifteen or so acres of property were crammed full of everything the ladies needed to sustain themselves.
There was a vegetable patch laid out in neat rows, ringed with a lopsided wooden fence.
Chickens roamed in gangs, their fat brown and white bodies bobbling along the ground as they pecked for sustenance.
In the distance, Verbena spied a small shed around which a number of goats and two black cows were grazing.
As she watched, a woman in a simple dress emerged from what must have been the kitchen door, carrying a bucket of scraps.
This she toted into the shed for the animals to feast upon.
“Our dairy,” said Anne. “That’s Penny, our cherished maid who dreamed it up. Milk, butter, cheese—enough to feed us and a little extra to sell besides.”
“You’d be shocked at the prices people are willing to pay for our cheese,” put in Bette.
“Genuine virgin cheddar! Made with the most untainted of pious hands.” She folded her palms, prayer-like, against her chest, a gesture Anne immediately copied.
The two women caught each other’s gaze and giggled.
A shared joke, then, possibly a long-running one.
Verbena was astonished to see them transform, only for a moment, from two aging spinsters into ladies barely out of their girlhood, their mirth stripping years from their faces.
“It’s good cheddar,” Penny said with mock sternness as she passed by on her way to the house.
Verbena was taken aback by the comment, and most of all by Penny’s lack of “madam” or “my lady” when speaking to their hostesses.
Anne must have noticed her surprise, for she said, “Penny has been with us since the beginning. She is devoted as can be. We owe her a great debt for that, and so have long since agreed not to stand on ceremony.”
“Yes, could you tell me about that beginning?” Flora asked. “I have heard stories—well, rumors—but I would love to know how two ladies such as yourselves came to be here.”
Verbena hummed in agreement. She, too, was eager to know whether the gossip was true or mere speculation.
“You tell it, Anne,” Bette said as they ambled by a greenhouse bursting with life, great waxy leaves pressed against the glass panes amid the fog of condensation. “It’s so much better when you tell it.”
Anne smiled at her companion before spinning to face Verbena and Flora, walking backward with the utmost confidence that her step would not falter. Her cane clacked along the rocky ground as they rounded the back of the house, closer to the crash of waves.
“Bette and I have known each other from girlhood,” she said, “growing up in the Scottish moors. Her brother, Miles’s father, even courted me for a moment.”
“A very brief moment,” Bette said with a snap in her voice.