Seven Stones to Stand or Fall (Outlander)(167)
Your most affectionate Father,
R. Rennie
“MR. BLOOMER” HAD SPECIFIED His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales’s residence at Kew for their meeting, on the twenty-first of June—Midsummer’s Day. Minnie’s diary carried a sketch of various flowers and fruits to mark the occasion; the White House (as it was casually known) had notable gardens, and a private tea (Admission by Invitation Only) was being held in said gardens by Princess Augusta, in support of one of that lady’s favorite charities.
It was a little outré for an unmarried young woman to go alone to such an event, Minnie reflected, dressing for the occasion, but Mr. Bloomer had specified that the agent do just that, sending a single ticket of invitation with his letter. Of course, he probably hadn’t realized that the agent would be a young woman.
It was a fine day out, and Minnie stepped down from the hansom at the end of the long avenue that led along the riverbank and up to the—quite large, if not quite palatial—house.
“I’ll walk from here,” she said to Rafe O’Higgins, who had accompanied her. “You can watch ’til I get in to the house, if you think you really must.” A number of colored parasols, broad-brimmed hats, and belled silk skirts were swaying slowly along the walks that edged a huge reflecting pool in the distance, like a parade of animated flowers—very appropriate to a garden party, she thought, amused.
“I’ll be picking ye up just here, then,” Rafe said, ignoring her gibe. He pointed to a carved-stone horse tank that stood in a small lay-by. “Just here,” he repeated, and looked at the sun. “It’s just gone two—will ye be done with your business by four, d’ye think?”
“I’ve no idea,” she said, standing on tiptoe to look as far as she could over the sea of green surrounding the house. Ornamental domes and shiny bits that might be glass or metal were visible through the trees, and she heard faint strains of music in the distance. She meant to explore the delights of Their Highnesses’ royal residence and its gardens to the full, once she’d dealt with Mr. Bloomer.
Rafe rolled his eyes but good-naturedly.
“Aye, then. If ye’re not here at four, I’ll come back on the hour ’til I find you.” He leaned down to address her nose to nose, hazel eyes boring into hers. “And if ye’re not here by seven, I’m comin’ in after you. Got that, have ye, Lady Bedelia?”
“Oh, piffle,” she said, but in a genial manner. She’d bought a modest parasol of ruffled green silk and now unfurled it with a flourish, turning her back on him. “I’ll see you anon.”
“And’s when anon, then?” he shouted behind her.
“Whenever I’m bloody ready!” she called back over her shoulder and strolled on, gently twirling.
The crowd was funneling in to a large central hall, where Princess Augusta—or so Minnie assumed the pretty, bejeweled woman with the big blue eyes and the incipient double chin to be—was greeting her guests, supported by several other gorgeously dressed ladies. Minnie casually faded into the crowd and bypassed the receiving line; no need to call attention to herself.
There were enormous refreshment tables at the back of the house, and she graciously accepted a glass of sherbet and an iced cake offered her by a servant; she nibbled as she wandered out into the gardens, with an eye to its design and the locations of various landmarks. She was to meet Mr. Bloomer at three o’clock, in the “first of the glasshouses.” Wearing green.
Green she was, from head to toe: a pale-green muslin gown, with a jacket and overskirt in a printed French calico. And, of course, the parasol, which she erected again once outside the house.
It was clever of Mr. Bloomer to choose green, she thought; she was very visible among the much more common pinks and blues and whites the other women wore, though not so uncommon as to cause staring. Green didn’t suit many complexions, but beyond that, green fabric tended to fade badly: Monsieur Vernet—an artist friend of her father’s, quite obsessed with whales—had told her once that green was a fugitive color, a notion that delighted her.
Perhaps that was why trees changed the color of their leaves in autumn? The green slipped away somehow, leaving them to fade into a brownish death. But why, then, did they have that momentary blaze of red and yellow?
Such concerns were far from the plants surrounding her; it was midsummer, and everything was so verdant that, far from being conspicuous, had she stopped moving in the midst of all this burgeoning flora, she would have been almost invisible.
She found the glasshouses without difficulty. There were five of them, all in a row, glittering like diamonds in the afternoon sun, each one linked to its fellow by a short covered passageway. She was a bit early, but that shouldn’t matter. She furled the parasol and joined the people passing in.
Inside, the air was heavy and damp, luscious with the smell of ripening fruit and heady blossom. She’d seen the king’s Orangerie at Versailles once; this was much less impressive but much more appealing. Oranges and lemons and limes, plums, peaches and apricots, pears…and the intoxicating scent of citrus blossom floating over everything.
She sighed happily and drifted down the graveled pathways that led among the rows, murmuring apology or acknowledgment as she brushed someone in passing, never meeting anyone’s eyes, and, finding herself momentarily alone beneath a canopy of quince trees, stopped to breathe the perfume of the solid yellow fruits overhead, the size of cricket balls.