Part 22

But he's distracted anyway - dropping to one knee, he swings the camera up to his eye with the grace of a motion made a thousand times.  Waits, motionless, for a moment, then I hear the shutter snap, and he's standing back up with an apologetic smile.
          "Sorry.  Butterfly landed perfectly on that blue flower there."
          "Flax.  It means 'I feel your kindness', or, alternately, 'fate'."
          He looks at me a little puzzled.  "Flowers have meanings?"
          "Apparently it was a thing in Victorian times.  I read somewhere that Meres - the one who built the house and planted the gardens - was pretty into arranging the flowers so that their meanings would all work together nicely.  Like... well, take this with a grain of salt, because each book I find gives different meanings, and I'm not exactly a pro at flower identification yet.  But right there, you've got flax, bachelor's button, sage, with a lilac bush behind.  Which is..."  I fish around in my bag and pull out the pages of my handwritten flower-meaning list.  "I feel your kindness - or fate... hope in love... esteem... first emotion of love."
          "So this is the 'I've got a crush on you corner'?"  He grins as he asks this, and I force myself not to blush at this.
          "Guess so!  Or, it could be symbolizing the early part of Meres and Celestine's relationship.  I wonder... I hadn't thought about it before, but I wonder if walking the paths in the right order progressively tells a story or something?  Or, would have, I'm sure most of the flowers have died or been crowded out over the years."
          "You think there'd be enough left to reconstruct it though?  I've seen a handful of photos of the garden - obviously not covering any inch of it or anything, but I wonder if going off of those, and what's still here, and maybe filling in the gaps with things whose meaning makes sense?"
          "You know, I bet that would work!  But I suspect Jeremy Mason doesn't care enough about the place to have it done..."
          "He the one who owns it now?"
          "Yeah.  All the way out in Nevada, I don't think any of the family's been back here in generations, if at all after the fire."
          "Huh..."
          We lapse into silence, and it would start to feel awkward, except that we're both so taken with the place, its history and its beauty, even now that its glory days are long-gone.  He takes a few more photos, and I jot a note in my sketchbook about the path idea.  He seems to spot something interesting on the opposite side of the fountain.
          "Nice meeting you - there are some shots around the foundation I want to take while the light's still right.  I'll see you at the historical society meeting, right?"
          "I suppooooose," I sigh with exaggerated acquiesence, then laugh.  "If you have pictures of my Masons, you bet I'll be there."

          I look down at my sketchbook again, but watch out of the corner of my eye as he walks away.  Nice enough guy.  (My sister's voice insisting I get a boyfriend echoes in my head - but I got pretty good at ignoring her as needed when we were still kids.)  And I bet he does have new shots of the Masons, why else wouldn't he tell me  straight out, just insist I come to the meaning?  (Nope.  Still ignoring Alison.)
          I lean down to gather up my pile of weeds - I've started making a little compost pile of them in an out-of-the-way spot where nothing's really growing toward one edge of the garden.  But as I look down, I spot a small red flower peeking out from behind a burdock leaf.  I can pull out one more stupid burdock plant.  As I do so, I realize there's are a few small bushes of the little red flowers, and covering the ground beneath the burdock (somewhat choking the red flowers) is a spreading patch of blue-violet vinca.  I kneel down to pull some of the vinca away - I know it's pretty tenacious stuff, half my grandma's yard was always covered in it.  I'm sure this was originally a much smaller plant.  Looking under the spreading shrubs nearby, I realize it's covering a pretty huge area now, so ripping out some of it here won't make much difference.
          If I remember right, Vinca is also called periwinkle, which I know was on one of my lists, I wonder what the meaning was?  When I've got a good foot cleared out around the red flower, I sit down on the path, brush off my hands as best I can, and pull out my copy of the flower-meaning list (which is getting pretty rumpled anyway, I should really just type it up and print new copies as needed).  Periwinkle... "sweet memories".  Aww.  Other sources listed blue periwinkle as "early friendship", and white periwinkle as "pleasures of memory".  That's sweet.  I wonder what the red flower is?
          Without much hope, I pull out the small wildflower guidebook that I've tried to keep in my bag.  It hasn't helped much, but it's the only flower book I have that's small enough to carry around without driving me crazy.  And sometimes there are wildflowes that are grown intentionally, or are in the same genus or species, close enough in appearance that I can figure out what I'm looking at.  Luckily for flower-newbie me, the book is organized by color, so I start flipping through the red pages.  Ha!  And there it is!  Adonis annua, pheasant's eye.  According to the map in the book, it's not usually found in the wild here, though it is in Kentucky and Tennessee, which aren't far off climate-wise.  And that means it's more likely its ancestor-plant was put in by Meres and Celestine.
          The name pheasant's eye rings a bell, and sure enough, it's on my list too: "sorrowful memories".
          Sweet memories and sorrowful memories, in the same place?  The vinca could have just invaded this spot unintentionally, of course, and I'm sure if things re-seeded themselves they'd have come up in different places.  But I wonder...

          Nope. They were planted here together on purpose. I rub my eyes, trying to hurry them clearing back up (though I'm pretty sure the blurring is the changes in light waves hitting them from the outside, not something internal).  My pile of weeds is gone, the overgrown shrubs and things are gone.  I focus intently on the spot in front of me - then realize, happily, my bag had still been on my lap from taking out the flower-meaning lists.  I grab my camera and take a few shots of the area immediately around me, to use as reference when I'm back in my own time.  Definitely no goldenrod that's supposed to be here!
          And then I hear a woman's voice, and it's very near.  She's speaking softly, and... and crying.  Looking around, I realize there's a gravel path that's not there in my time, that loops around just on the other side of the area I'd been clearing away.  The pheasant's eye, which was set pretty far back from the path on my side in my time, is closer to this other path, with the vinca running as an edging along the path.  Peering through the leaves of a shrub, I can just make out a figure on that other path, kneeling with skirts spread out wide around her.  I can't tell yet if it's Cora or Celestine - Cora's hair color was similar to Celestine's when she was young, and her face is both bent low and partly obscured by the plants between us.  She's tenderly weeding the patch of garden, which surprises me, wouldn't that have been the job of one of the servants?  I start to suspect it's Celestine - for all her bragging about the gardens, I can't picture Cora out here on her knees with her hands in the dirt.  Watering the flowers with her tears...
          I don't want to intrude on her like this.  I stay where I am, largely hidden behind the shrubs, though I suspect she's not aware of much around her anyway.  Her pale fingers lightly caress one of the pheasant's eye flowers, and I see enough of her face to recognize Celestine... and to see that her lovely features are twisted in deep grief.  Not the frustration of a fight with a loved one, or something going wrong, or in pain, but that deep, gut-wrenching, life-altering dispairing sorrow.
          And I remember what happened the last time I saw her, and the pit of my stomach falls.  What has this poor woman done to deserve any of this...
          But as I watch her, I realize she's younger than she was last time, so it's some other pain that she's suffering now.  I try to catch the occasional words she's muttering, but her voice is low, so it's some time before I can make any out.
          "My dear little... couldn't you..."
          Dear little?  But Meres and Celestine didn't have any children, did they?  Evelyn never mentioned any, and Azal said they hadn't had any.  I kneel down on the pathway, shifting a little - I can't see her any more, but I'm a little closer now, and try to pick out the stray words between the sobs.
          "...my little girl... and little Michael... we would have given you so much love, couldn't you have stayed here with us?  Just for a little while?"
          Oh.  Oh no.  "All of these years together, and still he has not given you a child?"  They were so in love, I guess it wouldn't have been for lack of trying... Oh poor Celestine, and Meres too.  They must have lost them in infancy, or miscarriage (if they didn't even have a name for the girl).
          Sweet memories and sorrowful memories.  I don't know how long I sit there, silent myself, as I listen to Celestine's heart breaking.  But after awhile, I hear footsteps, and hear Meres call her name gently.
          "My darling, are you still out here?  Do, come inside, the sun is so harsh at this time of day."  His voice is so soft and loving, I can almost see the words wrapping around her as an embrace.
          She chokes back a sob, and I can hear her sniffling.  "I'm... I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't..."
          "Hush, my dear one, it's all right."
          "It's just... it would have been her birthday today, if..."
          "I haven't forgotten.  How could I?"
          With the voices at normal speaking volume now, I lean a little to one side again, trying to catch a few glimpses through the leaves.  He's helping her to stand - and as she does, she collapses against his chest, and he encircles her in his arms, stroking her hair soothingly.  "There, now, child, it's..."  He trails off, unable to tell her it's all right, when it's clearly not.  He frowns, his eyes filling with frustration and sadness, as if he feels this is his fault.  Is that something they could have known back then?  It's not like they could get a fertility test done.  The only way you'd know is if... if one had had kids, or not had kids, with someone else.  Has he..?  Or has she?  No, I can't imagine---
          "Now, do, come indoors and rest yourself.  When I have you settled in to my satisfaction, I'll... I'll come finish this section of the garden myself."
          "Oh!  Meres, would you?  I know it's silly of me, but..."
          "Nothing that is done in love is silly, my darling."  He kisses the top of her head tenderly, then starts walking her back toward the house.