As with everything else on the estate, everyone knew what she was doing. Three times she’d awakened in the morning to find pots of herbs and flowers on the doorstep. During the night someone had delivered them to her and, the next morning, she’d happily planted them.
“This suits you,” William said. “This garden, this place, it all suits you.”
She knew what he was actually saying. She had saved him and sometimes he seemed to believe himself to be in love with her. But she knew he wasn’t, and she wasn’t in love with him either. For all his teasing and laughing, she understood why William Hawthorne had never married. He wasn’t a man who’d likely be faithful to any woman.
“Yes, it suits me,” she said. “I’m really just a class above a farmer.”
He hadn’t said anything to that, and she thought he agreed with her. His class system, which was ingrained in him, only made her laugh.
Now, she left him alone with his niece, to spend time together. It was two hours later that Beth came inside the orangery. “You have made it very nice in here,” she said, looking around. “Is that old vine growing?”
“Yes. It’s just showing the pink tip of the leaves. I think it got just enough water through the broken glass to keep it alive.”
Beth touched the vine for a moment, then turned to look back at her. “My brother, Tristan, and I have talked about what we can do to repay you for what you have done for our uncle.”
“It was nothing,” Faith said. “You’ve taken me in, fed me, clothed me. I couldn’t ask for more.”
“But Tristan takes care of a hundred people, but they did not save our uncle. We want to give you something.”
“No, please,” Faith said. “I don’t need payment.” She thought that the truth was that if she was going to stay there, a nice fat pot of gold might prove useful. But she was going to leave in less than two weeks, so what good would gold be to her? “Really, I can’t take anything.”
“We talked to Amy and she suggested that you might like this for a reward.” Beth held out a little packet wrapped in paper with a pretty block-printed design.
Faith had an idea that it was some wonderful book, but of what use would it be to her? When they’d been sent back in time, they’d arrived wearing different clothes. Faith was sure that whatever they had here would be taken away from them.
She took the book and thanked Beth for it. “How very sweet of you to think of this,” she said. “It was most kind.”
“Will you open it?” Beth asked.
Smiling in a set way because she was sure she knew what was in the package, Faith opened it—and her mouth dropped open. It was a book of hand-copied recipes for the fabulous soap and shampoo and four other products. Faith’s first thought was that she could memorize the recipes. If she put them to memory, she could take them back to her time.
She looked at Beth with wonder in her eyes. “These are…” She didn’t know what to say. “Thank you.”
“They are worthless as they are.”
“I beg your pardon?” Faith said.
“Read one.”
Faith looked at a recipe for face cream. It was simple enough: oil, water, a bit of beeswax, a few herbs. Then at the bottom she saw that it called for something called “balm.” “What is this last thing?” she asked. “A Balm of Gilead?” She looked at Beth’s eyes and saw that she thought this Biblical herb was not attainable. “We have this in my country,” Faith said, and wanted to add, “In my time.”
“Would you like to take a walk?” Beth asked.
“Certainly.” Faith slipped the book into the pocket of the apron she was wearing and followed her outside. She stopped to tell Thomas to look after William while she was gone.
William looked at his niece in surprise. “Do not tell me, Beth, that you are going to show her the secret of the women of this family?” His voice was teasing, but Faith could hear a deeper note under it. “Do you say that my life is worth that much to you?”
Beth, who had just a short while before been in tears to see her uncle, now gave him a look of dismissal. “You will never know,” she said to him over her shoulder.
Faith looked at William in question.
“Do not ask me to tell you,” William said loudly as the women left the garden. With the weight he’d gained his voice had improved. “Only once did I try to invade their secret. My father made sure I did not sit down for a week.”
“Beth,” Faith said when they were outside the walls, “what’s he talking about?”
They were walking past the old house, but Beth didn’t so much as glance at it. “Do you remember that I told you my family has lived here for a long time?”
“You said ‘since the dawn of time.’”
“Yes. That old house that you love so much—no, don’t deny it, I’ve heard how you shoo the cows out and wander through it every day—was the third house my family has had on this land.”
“Third?” Faith asked, thinking about how long they must have lived here.
“Come, and I will show you something that will interest you.”
Faith had to hurry to keep up with young Beth as she walked quickly across the pasture, then through a gate and into the woods. There was a narrow path, meant for one person only, that snaked through the dark woods. She looked up at the trees, growing so close together that no sunlight came through, and she wondered if she was seeing virgin forest: uncut since the creation of the world.
“No one is allowed in here,” Beth said. “There have been signs of wolves so sometimes I’ve taken Thomas with me, but never Tristan or my uncle. My mother hated it in here and refused to go, but then she was not of Hawthorne blood. I learned what I know from my grandmother and she from her mother.”
Faith had no idea what Beth was talking about, but the hairs on the back of her neck were beginning to stand up. The woods were dark and a bit creepy, and Beth’s words made it seem as though they were going to come upon a house full of witches.
“Beth, are you sure it’s all right for us to be back here alone?”
“Of course. There!” she said at last. “Look at that.”
Faith saw a clearing in the woods just ahead of them. There was a little hill and unless she missed her guess it was man-made, and looked to have been built a very long time ago. On the top of it was a short, round tower of stone, with a door in it, but no roof that she could see.
“What in the world is that?” Faith asked. “And how old is that thing?”
“It was there when one of my ancestors went on the Fourth Crusade,” Beth said.
“Crusade? So we’re talking about the year one thousand?”
“The Fourth Crusade was from 1201 to 1204,” she said, looking at Faith oddly, as though wondering if she’d ever been to school. “The tower is older than that. My grandmother told me that all the stones from the fields were piled here, then the stones were covered with dirt. More stones were used to build the tower.”
“I wonder if it could be Roman,” Faith said, looking up at it. It couldn’t have been more plain. The trees had been cut back from around it and from the look of the place, some trimming had been done recently. “Do you take care of it now?”
“Yes. I will pass it on to my daughter.”
There wasn’t a weed around the base of the building. If Beth was taking care of the tower, she was doing a good job. With the trees cut back, it was bright on the little hill and the sun fell onto the top of the stone building.
Beth reached into her pocket and withdrew a big iron key. “I am going to show you what is inside.”
Faith’s first thought was to say no, thanks, and run back to the orangery. What in the world was inside that could be such a mystery that it was protected by the women of the family, with no men allowed to see it?
Beth led the way up a narrow stone staircase that was embedded in the hillside, and every fairy tale Faith had ever heard went through her head. Maybe some monster was chained inside the building. Maybe—
She held her br
eath as Beth put the key in the lock and opened the door. The hinges were so well oiled that they made not a sound.
When the heavy oak door with its giant iron hinges swung open, Faith drew in her breath. But when she looked inside, she let it out. The ceiling was a pointed greenhouse roof, set several feet down from the top of the tower so it couldn’t be seen from the outside. Inside was a circular room, no more than twenty feet in diameter. In the center was a circular stone bench and around the edges were tall shrubs. It was quite hot in the tower and dry.
Faith looked at Beth in question but the girl said nothing. Curious, Faith went to look at the plants. The smell was heavenly and she recognized it immediately. “It’s the smell of the soap and the shampoo.”
Beth nodded but said nothing. Faith knew there was some secret that she was being told, but she didn’t know what it was. She looked at the leaves of the plant, but it didn’t seem familiar.
Then, all of a sudden, it came to her. She looked at Beth. “Balm?” she said. “The real balm?”
Beth nodded.
Faith looked back at the plants in wonder. There was a story that the Queen of Sheba had given King Solomon a balm of Gilead. And the same balm was mentioned in the Bible. For centuries scholars had argued about exactly what plant it was. In modern times there was one plant called the Balm of Gilead that grew in the Holy Lands and it was rare and protected. But there were many who believed that the real balm was an extinct plant called Balsamodendron opobalsamum.
“Where did this come from?” Faith asked, staring at the plant. If this was the true balm, then its oil had been used to anoint kings, and it smelled so good that there was a belief that in heaven there would be streams of opobalsam oil.
“Some of my ancestors were Knights Templars and they brought seeds back from…”
“The Holy Lands,” Faith finished for her as she touched the plants with reverence. “No one else has these plants, do they?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve never seen it in anyone’s garden. It has to be protected from the rain because it doesn’t like water.”
“But it likes sun,” Faith said as she put her hand on the sun-warmed stone wall. The tower with its stone walls and glass roof was all solar power. The sun came in through the glass roof and the stones stored the heat. Even when it rained, there would still be warmth in the stones. All in all, it was as good an environment as England could give the Mediterranean plants.
“I’m impressed,” Faith said. “This is…” There weren’t any words to describe how wonderful she thought it was that this family had been able to preserve this precious plant for hundreds of years. “What you’ve done is truly magnificent.”
Beth went to a part of the wall near the door, twisted a stone, and removed it. Inside was a hollow space that seemed to be full of envelopes. She removed one and handed it to Faith. “These are for you.”
Faith knew what was in the envelope: seeds. Seeds from a precious plant that had been extinct for a very long time. She very much wanted them, but how was she to get them back to her own time?
“Amy has hinted that she will leave soon,” Beth said. “Tristan refuses to listen to her, but I know she means it. I assume that you and Zoë will go with her. When you leave you may take the seeds with you, and you can plant them in your country. Do you have dry parts in your country?”
Faith thought of Arizona and southern New Mexico. “Oh yes, there are lots of dry areas.” They had no English-speaking people there in 1797, but they would. Even as Faith’s hands tightened possessively over the envelope, she kept thinking that she’d never be able to take the seeds with her.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you very, very much.”
“I will probably be haunted by the ghosts of my ancestors,” Beth said. “My grandmother made me take a vow not to share the seeds with anyone. Only we can make the products that use this holy plant.”
“Have you ever thought of going commercial?” Faith asked tentatively. The look Beth gave her was all the answer she needed. Beth was Lady Elizabeth and, no, she did not make things to sell to the public.
Faith had to turn away to hide her smile. It was hundreds of years away, but she knew there would come a time when all classes went into business. She looked about the round tower and wondered what would happen to it. If there was even one break in the female-to-female lineage in the family, no one would know what the plants were or how to take care of them. She could imagine the land being sold and a dozen ugly little houses being built where this forest was now.
“Is something wrong?” Beth asked.
“No, of course not,” Faith said, holding the seeds close to her breast. “It’s just that I’m amazed at all this. It’s wonderful. Extraordinary. And beautiful. That you’ve been able to preserve it for so long is truly…” She couldn’t think of the right words. “I promise that I’ll do what I can to see that this plant lives on.”
“I think we should get back to my uncle now,” Beth said and stepped toward the door, but she turned back and looked at the floor. Bending, she picked up something blue.
“What’s that?” Faith asked.
“It’s a bit of indigo ribbon,” Beth said, frowning. “I think someone has been in here.”
“How could they?” Faith said quickly. “The door is heavy and kept locked. No one can get in. I bet the ribbon blew in through there.” She pointed upward to a pane of glass in the roof that had a hole in it. It was only about two inches wide, but something like a ribbon could have blown through it.
Beth’s frown left her. “I’m sure you are right. I will have Thomas repair that.”
“Good idea,” Faith said as she held the door open for Beth. As she left, Faith stuck out her foot and rubbed out a little patch of pink chalk on the floor. Yesterday she’d seen Zoë wearing a ribbon in her hair just like the one that Beth had found in the tower room. That, combined with the chalk, told her that Zoë had been in there. But how? she wondered. She wouldn’t put it past that painter who was never out of Zoë’s sight to have stolen the key from Beth and used it. And what did they do once they were inside the tower? That didn’t take much guesswork.
As Faith followed Beth down the stairs, she vowed that as soon as they got back to the orangery, Faith was going to find Zoë and tell her to stay out of things that didn’t concern her.
She stuck the envelope of seeds inside her dress and went back through the forest behind Beth. This time, she thought the woods were the most beautiful place she’d ever seen, and she looked at the lush growth with new eyes. Was there anything in it that she could use?
They were almost to the gate when she stopped. “Beth, wait a minute.”
Faith had seen something in the forest that she didn’t like. She lifted her skirt to above her ankles and made her way through the damp undergrowth. She had seen a glimpse of red.
She stopped near a big oak tree and turned to see Beth just behind her. She nodded toward a stand of red-topped mushrooms. “Those are deadly,” she said. “And hallucinogenic, as well.”
“Halluci…?”
Faith wasn’t going to explain a drug trip to someone of Beth’s age. Who knew what she’d start? The drug age hundreds of years early? “I think they should be destroyed.”
“No one is allowed in here, but go ahead. It does not matter.”
Faith used her feet to knock over the big mushrooms, then grind them down. In her own time she wouldn’t have done it, but in this age she knew that people ate whatever grew. She had seen that they ate puffballs, something that modern people thought were poisonous.
“All right?” Beth asked.
She nodded and they started to walk out of the forest, but as they got to the gate, Beth stopped her. “I have something to ask you.”
Faith could tell that Beth was nervous about whatever she wanted to say.
“I greatly admire what you have done,” Beth said.
“It’s only what anyone would do,” Faith began.
“Yo
u know more than the doctor!”
Faith refrained from making a sarcastic remark at that. Amy had sent her a note saying that Tristan had taken care of the doctor and he wouldn’t be bothering her. “I know some different ways of working, that’s all,” Faith said at last.
“I want to learn from you,” Beth said. “I want you to teach me what you know. I know I have no true experience, but I have taken care of the tower since I was twelve. The only thing I have to do now is to sit for a portrait with Mr. Johns and he is…”
“Teaching Zoë,” Faith said diplomatically.
“That is just what Tristan said.” They looked at each other and burst into laughter.
“Of course you may come to me,” Faith said. “You may stay all day and all night. I’ll teach you the tiny bit that I know and I’ll be glad for your company.”
“I am glad you came here,” Beth said. “Very, very glad.”
“So am I.” Faith slipped Beth’s arm through hers and they walked back to the orangery.
Nineteen
“If they find us in here,” Zoë said, “they’ll…What do they do for punishment in the eighteenth century?”
Russell didn’t look up from the canvas on his easel. “Sometimes you sound like you know nothing about your own century.”
“Didn’t I tell you that I come from the future? We have spaceships and lots of little green men.”
“Hmph!” he said, glancing up at her nude body as it was stretched out on the silk coverlet, the bushes in the tower behind her. “I can believe it. Would you please stop talking so I can paint?”
“I didn’t think you cared what my face was doing.”
“Only sometimes,” he said, glancing up at her in a way that made her body feel warmer than it already was.
“Shouldn’t we take a break soon?”
“Your breaks are more tiring than work,” he said, his eyes on the canvas.
Zoë put her head back into the position that Russell had placed her in and looked up at the glass roof. He’d shown her the stone tower only after they’d been lovers for an entire week, and from the way he acted, she knew he’d been saving it for someone special.