Both of their eyes widened. ‘With animals?’ asked Samantha. ‘Aunty Martha, are we going to have animals?’
Martha put her hands on her hips. ‘Well, it would be a funny menagerie without animals, now, wouldn’t it?’ Samantha looked to her mother for confirmation.
‘I think I will need your help to decide which ones to choose first. Perhaps we could look in the book you wrote with Annie?’
‘A rhinocerot!’ shouted Samantha.
‘A lion,’ exclaimed Edward, with his hands over his mouth in excitement.
‘A uncorn,’ stated Abigail, perking up from where she still clung to Frankie.
Thea smiled, despite the sombreness of the day. ‘Why don’t you go with Mr Fenwick and make a list? You can use the book that Annie wrote.’
Frankie popped Abigail on the floor. She seemed to have forgotten the sombre occasion already as she ran towards Mr Fenwick in anticipation of planning the arrival of her unicorn. The tutor guided the chattering siblings towards the nursery. ‘Joan will help,’ she heard Samantha say as they trotted into the house and through the marble hallway, past the bust of their father without so much as looking up. ‘She told me about all sorts of animals she used to see in India.’
‘I think they will be alright,’ said Frankie, as Thea watched them go.
Thea turned back to her, seeing Martha talking to The Dowager Duchess over her shoulder. She had turned out to be a fierce ally over the past week.
‘I think you’re right,’ she said. ‘The Dowager Duchess has agreed that we can stay at Hawkdean as a family. It is fixed.’
‘That is good,’ said Frankie. ‘But the children will be fine anywhere, with you and Lady Foxmore.’
Thea smiled at her. ‘That is kind, thank you.’
‘You will be unstoppable now, Your Grace, without Fletcher and Knatchbull doing you down.’
Thea laughed a little. She felt far more secure in her immediate surroundings, but the world without a husband was a whole new proposition, and her old insecurities still pricked. ‘Both you and Lady Foxmore will be,’ she said, looking over at where Martha laughed with the Dowager. ‘I know she says she is settled, but it won’t be long before she is itching to travel again, and I would be happy to support her to go. And you – you could achieve a job anywhere in the country with your skills.’ Anxiety hit at that point, as she realised that it was true. ‘Although I would hope that we could convince you to stay?’
Frankie grinned. ‘Just try and make me leave. You took me out of London and this is the best place I’ve been for the plants.’
‘We can remodel the stove range,’ said Thea, feeling that glimmer of possibility. ‘And you can grow anything within it.’
‘We can grow anything within it,’ clarified Frankie.
‘You don’t have to be kind about it,’ said Thea with a slightly admonishing look. ‘You have achieved all the success with the rarities yourself. I was floundering before you arrived, but I am sure, that in time, I will find my specialism.’
‘Why do you need one?’ asked Frankie.
‘I’m sorry?’ asked Thea, not following.
‘Why do you need a specialism?’ said Frankie. ‘You struggle to apply yourself in detail to one discipline, and yet, because you have the passion and the means you have a little of natural history and physics and botany and even chemistry. Why limit yourself because that is how some others prefer to work?’
‘Then what do you suggest?’ asked Thea, not quite understanding. ‘If I do not have a specialism, I am simply a virtuoso like Grimston.’
‘Certainly not,’ said Frankie, ‘because you are generous and you recognise talent in others without keeping glory for yourself. You have the means and the space, both indoors and out. If you use that to help others to do what they do, that’s powerful.’ Thea remained silent. She had never considered that she didn’t need to be the one to do the work. She looked up at the house and then turned to regard the extensive parkland in which it sat.
‘Huh,’ she said, not considering that she could manage anything more eloquent.
‘You do not have to be good at everything,’ said Frankie. ‘I have built my skills because you invited me here and gave me seeds and materials and time. But I shall need more staff if we are to do more. You have helped Crumpacker to do the same andhave encouraged Cecily to study and Lady Foxmore to explore. This way you can achieve anything, now he’s gone.’
‘Huh,’ said Thea again, wondering how it was that the girl she took out of a brothel knew more than she did about who she was able to be.
Thea found Martha in the fledgling arboretum, feeling more exuberant than she should be on the day of her husband’s funeral. Martha turned and smiled at her.
‘I hoped you would find me here.’
‘The Dowager Duchess informed me where you were’ she said. ‘Says she’s delighted what we’re doing with the estate.’
