Chapter 35
Show me your garden…and I will tell you what you are like.
Joseph’s father agreed to entrust David and Sophie to Tessa. Edward and his father consented upon several conditions. The children would be wards. Edward would provide David with an education and Sophie with a dowry, but he would deed them no property. Nor would they take the Stratford name.
Instead, the Stratfords stipulated that the children use their mother’s name.
Thanks to Joseph and his father, Lazare was known and respected in Charleston, whereas the name of an obscure dead Scotsman meant nothing to anyone.
Except his children. Joseph’s father bristled at this qualification, but finally he signed.
“Did the Stratfords think I would neglect my grandchildren if they carried a different name than me?” he blustered afterwards. “Maybe that’s how their set behaves, but not mine!”
Joseph knew it also rankled his father that near-strangers could provide for his grandchildren better than he could, at least financially.
He’d already spent most of his nest-egg: on a gift to start Cathy in California (which David had used to return to Missouri), on Hélène and Liam’s wedding holiday, and on Prince.
Since the cathedral had no cemetery and St. Mary’s churchyard had no corner unfilled, Joseph’s father used the remainder of his funds to purchase a plot at St. Patrick’s in Radcliffeborough.
There, two of his patients, free colored artisans, built a brick mausoleum.
The men carved LAZARE on the sandstone arch above the door and three names on a limestone panel inside: Cathy’s, Perry’s, and the name of their newborn son, Ian.
But of course the crypt behind the panel held no remains.
Joseph reflected on the words he would say in remembrance of his sister, his brother-in-law, and the nephew he would never meet.
He decided it was fitting that the name Lazare should appear on an empty tomb.
It was, after all, the French form of Lazarus.
One day, Cathy, Perry, and Ian would arise too.
As if to emphasize the depth of his own pockets, Edward purchased a new house on Church Street, in one of the oldest parts of Charleston.
This house was twice as large as Joseph’s father’s, with a total of twelve rooms (not counting the piazzas or the cellar).
Edward wished to avoid his wards, it seemed.
Tessa admitted her relief at leaving Friend Street and its memories behind.
Tessa still visited her children’s graves; she still prayed for them; but she would no longer be forced to live in the house where she had lost them.
Her wedding night had taken place in the Friend Street house, too.
In the new house on Church Street, Tessa and her husband would occupy separate bedchambers.
She was particularly delighted by her new garden.
Edward had considered a house on the Battery with a smaller lot, but Tessa had persuaded him to take this one.
“The moment I saw the garden, I felt as if I belonged here,” she told Joseph.
The previous owner, a widower who would take up permanent residence at his summer home in Rhode Island, seemed relieved to have found a successor who appreciated his roses.
These thrived against the brick wall that bordered Longitude Lane.
At the back of the large lot, fruit trees and vegetables beds supplied the kitchen.
Many of the ornamentals had become overgrown, however, while others suffered unnecessarily.
“All the better to make a new start,” Tessa said.
Charlestonians favored parterres: geometric beds bounded by low hedges and wide paths.
To please Edward, Tessa would keep a parterre in the area between the house and the front wrought iron fence.
And she would not dream of uprooting the roses.
But in the rest of the space, she would make the garden her own.
She took her cue from Capability Brown. With suggestions from Joseph and assistance from her slaves, Tessa began to create an informal garden: a small oasis of shrubs and trees joined by grass that might be mistaken for a natural woodland glade.
“As little brick and oyster-shell as possible,” Tessa declared.
“I want it to be soft—so it can be a play-ground for the children. I want them to feel at home here too.” She could hardly wait until spring.
In the house itself, Hélène helped Tessa decorate David and Sophie’s chambers in preparation for their arrival.
Joseph visited one evening for the sheer pleasure of watching Tessa smile—not for a few moments but for hours.
His sister’s humor rebounded easily; he did not fear so much for her.
Tessa’s despair was more stubborn, her joy more timid.
Finally, she seemed to have found her way again.
Joseph had not seen Tessa aglow like this since she was carrying Bean.
Perhaps this was why God had denied Tessa her own children, Joseph thought: so that her heart and her home would be open for David and Sophie.
That wicked part of him protested: Do you really think she could not have been mother to them all?
Perhaps her suffering had served merely to persuade Edward to pity her.
In fact, Joseph’s grandmother did not live to see David and Sophie again.
Abiding by her wishes, Joseph laid her to rest not in the Lazare mausoleum but atop her husband at St. Mary’s.
Joseph, his mother, and his sister assured Tessa that their agreement would not change; she would not lose the children.
Even now, on their long journey back to Charleston, Joseph’s father would be telling them about Tessa.
When Sophie saw the chevaux-de-frise atop the Stratfords’ wrought iron fence, she gasped: “It’s like Sleeping Beauty’s castle!
” These brambles certainly might be the work of a deranged fairy: iron spikes longer than a man’s hand that canted in half a dozen directions.
Tessa wanted to remove the chevaux-de-frise, but Edward refused.
In the wake of Denmark Vesey’s slave plot, many Charlestonians had installed these iron spikes, like porcupines bristling their quills.
When Tessa first showed the children her garden, Joseph accompanied his niece and nephew.
David hung back, as if he didn’t belong with them, but everything intrigued Sophie.
Her favorite part was the old brick wall with the climbing Noisettes.
Joseph had seen the roses at a distance, but he’d not indulged himself by lingering or asking questions.
“Allow me to introduce you,” Tessa smiled, tipping a white rose to face them. The blossom was so densely petalled, it turned downward under its own weight. “This is Lamarque.”
“It looks like your petticoats!” Sophie exclaimed.
Tessa laughed. She did wear fuller skirts than Joseph’s mother or sister—that was the fashion, so that was what Edward required.
Sophie had her nose in one of the Lamarques. “And it smells like lemonade!”
“I think so too,” Tessa agreed. “But this rose down here—I can’t decide what it smells like. Will you help me?”
Sophie nodded and skipped ahead of them, toward another climbing Noisette. Against the light green of its foliage and the faded red of the brick, this rose was even more stunning—not the color of crisp linen but soft flesh.
Tessa tried to engage David: “Lamarque and this other rose that’s still in bloom—they’re siblings, just like you and Sophie. Their parents are Blush Noisette and—”
“There’s a secret door!” Sophie cried, and dashed to it.
The canes, leaves, and blossoms of the flesh-colored rose half-concealed a narrow gate set into the brick garden wall.
Sophie stretched up onto her toes and craned her neck, but she still couldn’t reach the wrought iron window at the top of the gate. “Where does this go?”
“Only onto Longitude Lane,” Tessa told her. “This house’s previous owner was a merchant, so he used the gate as a shortcut to the wharves.”
Joseph’s niece rattled the doorknob. “Do you have the key?”
“Of course. We can use it in the spring, if you like, when we take the ferry to Sullivan’s Island.”
Sophie nodded in anticipation but still stared longingly toward the window. “Give me a boost, Uncle Joseph?”
“A what?” he asked, though he understood.
As he obliged, Tessa laughed too, clearly unconcerned that her new ward did not speak like a Charleston lady.
Through the round grille of the window, Joseph and his niece saw the neighbors’ live oak reaching across the cobbles and flagstones of Longitude Lane.
“French gardeners have a term for this kind of openwork,” Joseph told them, nodding at the wrought iron window. “They would call it a claire-voie.”
Sophie puzzled it out. “A light-way?”
“Très bien!” Joseph praised as he set her down. “You know your French.”
Her face darkened. “Mama taught us.”
“Did she have roses, at your home in Missouri?” Tessa asked.
The girl nodded.
“If you remember what they looked like, we could plant them here, too.”
“Mama’s roses weren’t as pretty as these.” Sophie touched the nearest bloom.
Joseph could see now that the roses weren’t truly flesh-colored. He examined them in awe. The blossoms were golden at their centers, then peach till they flushed pink at the tips of their petals.
“Can you imagine anything more beautiful?” Tessa asked.
He couldn’t—at least, not in a rose.
“They’re called Jaune Desprez. They were the first Noisettes to show any yellow. They’ve been quite the sensation—and not only for their appearance. What do you think these roses smell like, Sophie?”
The girl sniffed, then hesitated. “Peaches?”
“There isn’t a wrong answer,” Tessa assured her. “But they make me think of Passion fruit. Did you have Passion vines in Missouri?”
Sophie stuck out her lower lip in thought.
“We called them maypops,” David interjected quietly.
His sister gasped and nodded.
“Your Uncle Joseph has a Passion vine in his garden at the cathedral,” Tessa told the children. “If you ask him, I’m sure he’ll bring you a few fruits next summer.”
He promised to do so.
“Now you try it, Uncle Joseph!” Sophie commanded, pointing at the nearest rose.
He closed his eyes and obeyed. The scent of the Jaune Desprez proved even more complex than its color, luscious yet elusive.
Beneath the sweetness of fruit came a hint of musk, perhaps jasmine…
“It reminds me of pineapple,” he decided.
He’d tasted pineapple only once. This must be the ambrosia of the gods, he’d thought, in a moment of pagan fancy.
Sophie didn’t understand. “What kind of apple?”
Joseph smiled. “Pineapples grow in places even warmer than Charleston, and they’re much better than apples.”
“Sometimes ships bring us pineapples,” Tessa told Sophie. “I’ll ask our cook to watch for them at the market, so you and your brother can try one.”
Joseph’s mouth watered at the mere thought.
Tessa looked to David. “Would you like that?”
The boy nodded wordlessly, then mumbled: “May I go back inside now?”
“A-All right.” Joseph could hear the disappointment in Tessa’s voice. David slunk away.
Sophie turned back to the Jaune Desprez and inhaled again. “I wish we could eat these!”
Tessa smiled. “We can, if you’ll help me candy some of the petals.”
Sophie’s eyes widened, and she nodded eagerly.
“Perhaps your uncle will help us pick the blossoms at the top of the wall, so we can still enjoy the lower ones?”
He bowed. “I am at your service, ladies.”