Page 5 of Bane Bloom

I sighed. “Only, think of it as an adventure, Papa. I assure you, I do.” Actually, my father’s reaction had rather increased my own faint stirrings of anxiety about the proposal. But it was a decided thing in my mind.

“But there will be Vikings, child.”

A laugh escaped me at Papa’s characteristic drama. “There will not, and you well know it.”

“How can you be certain?”

“People go there on holiday all the time.” People more happily situated in their finances than we were. “It’s perfectly civilized. The Society would hardly send me there if it wasn’t.”

He gave a huff of disbelief. “You are too quick to trust, my dear.” His gaze drifted to his current commission, a portrait of some wealthy merchant whose name I’d forgotten. Papa fiddled nervously with one sleeve cuff, which was rolled up almost to his elbow. Paint blotches stained his threadbare shirt.

“I’ll admit I didn’t have much hope the Society would give you what you wanted,” he continued, “but I hardly foresaw this. What an extraordinary outcome. Why on earth do they wish to send you? No disparagement to your skill, bug, but why not send one of the apothecaries?”

I shrugged. “I suspect for the reasons you have just named, Papa. No one else wants to journey to the wilds of England, especially with the risk of encountering Nordic raiders.”

He looked at me, a sparkle of mirth in his hazel eyes. “Go ahead and laugh at your old papa.” Then he took a deep breath. “I suppose this is my fault. If I’d been able to hold on to more money over the years—”

“You have done the best you could, Papa,” I said firmly, going to him and taking his knobby hand in mine. “Raising me on your own, painting for one wealthy patron after another so that you might feed us as well as pay wages for both a nurse and maid. It’s no wonder your poor fingers ache so.”

Papa’s rheumatism was becoming too much, and he was working far too hard at a time of life when he should have had rest and ease. I blamed my mother, who’d run off when I was still an infant, for him having no one to share his burdens with.

His eyes shone with tears. “You should at least have a companion to go with you. Perhaps Nancy—”

“Ring for tea!” squawked Hattie.

“Certainly not,” I said, ignoring the yellow-crested demon. “I need Nancy looking after you while I’m gone so I can do my work without worrying. I will be fine, and I will write to you as often as I can.”

He put his arms around me, and I felt a warm tear slip from his cheek onto mine. “You’ll come back to me, bug?”

Knowing he was thinking of my mother, I closed my eyes and tightened my arms around him. “Of course I will, Papa,” I whispered so he wouldn’t hear the hitch in my voice. “All will be well. You’ll see.”

I doubted many unmarried women would undertake such a venture without more protest from their fathers. But I was thirty, after all.

Moreover, Papa and I had only ever had each other, and our little family lacked any real hierarchy. Even when I was a young girl, he’d mostly let me do as I pleased—believing it the best way to encourage my creativity—and left it to servants to ensure I bathed regularly and didn’t burn down the house.

After I’d taken on management of our household at age eighteen, he had gradually come to defer to me in matters both pecuniary and practical. Papa had indeed done the best he could, and he was tired. It was my turn to keep us out of the workhouse and the streets. I reminded myself of this each time Papa’s worries about my Cumberland venture—as well as my own misgivings—surfaced in my thoughts.

Within a week of my agreeing to Mr. Harding’s terms, arrangements had been made. I received several missives from the curator regarding the assignment and the journey, and I read out parts of them to Papa in hopes of giving him some measure of peace. He did seem to settle into a sort of reluctant acceptance.

I was to travel north by train as far as Penrith station, and the rest of the journey would be managed by a combination of coach and, if I understood Harding’s last letter rightly, farmer’s cart for the final short stretch from the village of Keswick.

I would lodge in Pine Cottage on the shore of Buttermere with no companion but a groundskeeper who lived on the property and kept up the glasshouse. I held back this detail from Papa, afraid it would only raise fresh worries.

As for myself, I began to fret in earnest as the day set for my departure drew near. How would I manage, all on my own for the first time in my life? Would I be lonely? Frightened?

Whenever I felt uncertain about an undertaking, my habit was to plunge right in, before the worries could erect a wall of dread. So in those final days, I busied myself with organizing my limited wardrobe (made easier by the fact that I always wore black), procuring sketchbooks and a new set of pencils, and making lists for Nancy.

Very early on the morning of my departure, Mr. Harding sent a carriage to fetch me to the train station. I stood with Papa on the cobblestones in front of the house while the driver loaded my trunks. We could hear Hattie’s shrill disgruntlement through the open front door. “Eat your porridge, miss!”

Noticing Papa’s poor, drawn face, I said, “Come now, it’s only a few weeks. I’ll be back before you’ve finished your next commission.”

“It’s a month,” he protested. “We’ve never been apart for so long.”

It was true. At most he might stay at the home of a patron or artist friend for a few days. “I know it, and I will miss you.”

He reached for my hand, and my throat tightened. “Keep yourself safe, bug. You know I can’t manage without you.”

Though this wasn’t really what he meant, I replied, “Nancy has everything well in hand, Papa, and she has the address where you may write to me. If there are any difficulties, please do so straightaway.” Managing a smile, I added, “If Hattie becomes too much, have Nancy tuck her into a pie.”