Chapter 12 #2
Thea stifled a smile. ‘You were willing to have brown something smeared all over you and a chair shoved in your mouth, but not to read a book.’ Frankie continued to rub at the trunk, so Thea continued. ‘Is that why you were so reticent to join the household? That you thought I would be bothered?’
Frankie turned to face her and leaned against the tree. ‘I know your lot like your staff to be able to do it all.’
Thea smiled a little. ‘I like my staff to be able to do what I employ them to do, and I have employed you to do the garden. I taught James, our late footman to draw and to write because he wished it, but he was perfectly good at his job without it.’ This seemed to relax Frankie a little.
‘It’s not that I haven’t tried,’ said Frankie. ‘Countless times. It would have been easier to get out that way, but I can’t do it. They gave me the jobs where they thought it wasn’t needed but it ain’t half a hindrance sometimes with reading the names.’
‘But nevertheless, you are a brilliant gardener and achieve more than I have seen from a grower in some years. You create your own way of remembering, I assume?’
Frankie nodded in the affirmative and Thea stood, but then turned back. ’Get out of where?’ she asked.
‘Eh?’ asked Frankie.
‘You just said, it would have been easier to get out.’ said Thea. ‘To get out from where?’ She swallowed, hoping she hadn’t just made a grave mistake. She barely knew anything about Frankie or her past.
Frankie, for her part, looked like she had given too much away for comfort. ‘Not prison, Your Grace, if that’s what you were thinking?’
‘Then where?’ asked Thea. ‘The workhouse?’ A host of awful possibilities for Frankie’s past started to swell in her mind. ‘You weren’t in… in one of the places I found you in… when you were younger?’
‘Not as such,’ said Frankie, ‘although some of them thought they could do what they liked.’ She sighed when Thea looked at her firmly.
‘I was a foundling, Your Grace. From the Foundling Hospital. They told me my mother died when I was born and my father didn’t want me, then.
So, I grew up with all the others. Lucky, really. Wouldn’t be here, otherwise.’
Thea stared at her for a minute. She knew this went on, of course, but she was cushioned here in her wealthy part of London. She didn’t have to see it if she didn’t want to. And she didn’t want to, as a rule. But maybe she should. ‘How did you get out?’ she asked.
Frankie shrugged. ‘They kick you out eventually, but they farm you out for work, first. If you’re lucky you get a good position.
I was small and strong, so good at climbing and the like.
Good job really. The ones that could read and that went to shops and all sorts.
I did lots of fruit picking in the autumn like Speckle said.
Also chimneys, water closets, roofs – that kind of thing.
I had to work hard, or you don’t last long. ’
‘How old were you?’ asked Thea. ‘When they sent you to work?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Frankie. ‘I never knew how old I was, but girls were usually apprenticed at about twelve. I was small so might have been thirteen. That was about seven years ago.’
‘And why did you stay with Herbert?’ asked Thea. ‘When he was such a bad employer?’
Frankie shrugged again. ‘Because I liked the work. I got to poking around the garden after the apples and liked what I saw. He grudgingly knew I was good at it, so I stayed.’
‘Until I lost you your job and you had to go to be a…’ She trailed off.
‘A prostitute,’ said Frankie matter of factly. Thea felt her face redden.
‘Well – yes.’
‘Not the first time,’ said Frankie, raising an eyebrow. ‘Always hoping it might be the last.’ Frankie tried to put on a brave face but the strain showed through. Thea was filled with guilt once again.
‘What can I ever do to make it up to you?’ she asked quietly.
Frankie folded her arms. ‘I told you I can make my own way. I don’t need you to save me, I just need you to let me do my job. And to buy all the stuff we need,’ she added, taking a little of the impact from the statement.
‘That, I can do,’ said Thea, at least happy to find something she could offer. ‘Tomorrow we will collect Speckle and go and buy seeds.’
‘Frankie, look at you!’ said Mr Gordon the seedsman in his east London accent. He whistled through his teeth and tucked his thumbs into his belt as he regarded her by the carriage. ‘Look at that getup. You look smarter than ever I must say.’
‘Thanks James,’ said Frankie a little quietly.
‘We called at Boyce’s on the way to Mile End,’ said Thea, emerging from the carriage herself.
She wouldn’t usually let the staff go first but she hadn’t been certain Frankie’s breakfast was going to stay in her for much longer after juddering over the cobbles.
She was grateful they had chosen Mr Gordon’s seed shop on Fenchurch Street, and not his extensive nursery four miles away in Mile End.
‘Now Frankie is working for me she must have the correct dress and commitment to do her job.’ She looked again at the outfit Frankie had chosen and wished she could get away with it.
Just on the edge of acceptability. A simple skirt which allowed movement without unnecessary embellishment, a man’s shirt that she could almost get away with calling a shift and a tweed waistcoat with a pocket on each side.
A dark scarf kept out the cold, and she had refused to part with her old peaked felt cap.
She did look the business, and Thea had bought her two other outfits just like it.
‘Your Grace,’ said Mr Gordon, straightening. ‘My apologies, I didn’t see you there. And Dr Speckle,’ he said, nodding as the third figure descended the stairs.
‘We are here for your best seeds, Mr Gordon,’ said Thea. ‘And any roots you have had come in. Frankie here will be stepping up the cultivation at Hawkdean.’
‘Of course, Your Grace.’ Mr Gordon, the most eminent seedsman in London, snapped to attention and began flitting around his shop and outdoor selling area.
He picked up pots and packets, discussing them with Thea, Frankie and Speckle.
He loaded them into a pile by the counter, talking easily and from memory about their origins and what was known about their cultivation.
Thea could see Frankie nodding along, memorising each one in turn.
She squeezed the roots to check their firmness, held the seeds to the light to check viability and peered at the underside of terracotta pots to ensure the right level of root growth.
Thea became aware of Speckle alongside her at the same time she realised she was staring.
‘You have made quite the appointment there, Your Grace,’ he said kindly. ‘She will fly given half the chance and if she isn’t limited by an old curmudgeon like Herbert or a poor apprentice like me.’
‘I hope so,’ said Thea as she watched. ‘She will have everything she needs and to cultivate as she wishes. Lord knows she can’t make the stove at Hawkdean much worse.’
‘I have no doubt she will excel,’ said Speckle. He checked his pocket watch.
Thea turned to him. ‘I am sorry if we keep you from your work, Dr Speckle,’ she said. ‘I had not thought. But do you not wish to buy anything for your own garden?’
Speckle smoothed his sleeve, a little nervously, she thought. ‘I don’t think so today, Your Grace,’ he said. ‘I have little room in the garden at Piccadilly and only myself to tend it. I must spend a little time building my own client base also, even though many have come with me.’
The shame rushed inside Thea, replacing the brief moment of optimism.
‘Of course,’ she said, staring at the floor in front of them.
He didn’t know that it was her that Frankie had been seen kissing, but she felt guilty anyway.
‘I hope you are not in too much hardship following your split with Herbert, Doctor,’ she said. ‘What an unfortunate business.’
‘Oh no,’ Speckle looked almost gleeful. ‘You misunderstand my meaning, Your Grace. I see this as a chance to set up on my own and become independent of him. It was high time I made the break.’
Thea eyed him. ‘Where are you from, Dr Speckle,’ she asked. ‘I assume your parents had a little money to send you to medical school? Can they not help any longer?’
Speckle crossed his arms next to her, his eyes still trained on the intense discussions between Frankie and James Gordon.
‘I prefer to make my own way,’ he said. ‘Even though they have plenty.’ ‘My family are from… no.’ He checked himself.
‘My family live in St Vincent in the West Indies. I grew up there. As soon as I was of age I only took enough money to pay for my tuition and after that was determined to make my own way. I spent long enough out there – it is dirty money.’
Thea’s heart sank. ‘A plantation?’
Speckle nodded. ‘Three.’
A silence fell between them as they both contemplated the fact in their own way, but Thea was quietly pleased that her new friend shared her perspective on the colonies.
‘I commend you for making your own path, Dr Speckle,’ said Thea.
‘I have had a little chance to formulate my own opinions on the subject, and it is a bad business.’
He nodded once, still a little tense. ‘I have never understood how anyone can see it and not be opposed to it.’
‘But few do see, Dr Speckle,’ said Thea, trying not to portray how inadequate she felt.
She thought of the conversations she had had with a captain who used to run slave ships, and his terrible accounts of disease and death.
‘And those who hear of it largely hear a sanitised version or choose to believe other than the truth. I hear murmurings of disquiet on the subject of the slaves, but not enough.’
‘Awareness is key,’ said Speckle firmly. ‘I plan a pamphlet on it, once I have completed the current crop.’ He eyed her and then feigned interest in an onion hoe dangling from a wooden shelf. ‘The voice of those with status and influence is always welcome in the cause.’
Thea poked the label on a succulent next to her.
‘Ah.’ She said, wondering how to begin to express this to someone with such purpose.
‘I would not hesitate given the chance. ‘But my husband…’ She didn’t really understand why George was so keen to keep Knatchbull and his ilk close, but she knew he would be furious if she spoke out against their business.
It made her feel ridiculously inadequate.
‘I understand,’ said Speckle, with no judgement at all. It almost made her feel worse. She tried to change the subject.
‘How many pamphlets on the go now?’ she asked, hoping to lighten the mood.
‘Only about four,’ said Speckle, ‘but they are also on a pause while I search for clients.’
‘I will be sure to recommend you,’ said Thea. ‘George insists we use his old family doctor, but I have seen little use in him yet.’
‘The old ways are not always the best,’ said Speckle. ‘Things move and change. Cures become possible that never were. There could be any number of remedies in this room as yet untested, and I plan to find out.’
A thought occurred to Thea – something she could do. ‘Then I insist you use my garden as an experiment ground,’ she said. ‘At least when some of these have grown a little.’
‘That would be most generous of you, Your Grace,’ said Speckle. ‘I have hoped to try out some of the plants Frankie has in her pile for some time and has not had the space to cultivate.’
For the first time in a while, a feeling of promise started to germinate in Thea’s chest. She had the land and the money, now she had the skill and the time to put those things into action. Defiance at George who limited her and the men who dismissed her unfurled and filled her veins.
‘Mr Gordon,’ she said, striding forward and making both the seedsman and Frankie jump. ‘I don’t suppose you have any seeds of the King Protea?’