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“You gave your father the idea. Has he asked for your opinion?”
He gazed at the nearby trunk of a palm tree, its scale-like surface serpentine. “Seek my opinion above that of others?” He shook his head. “Perhaps if Adrian were in town, he would have sought him out…then complained that Adrian’s opinion wasn’t strong enough. No, my father doesn’t include me in such matters.”
“Well, I’m glad you brought today about. I’m certain it means something to your family.”
“Perhaps. Very well, yes, I suppose it does. But we both know I’m here for your company.” Before she could speak, he gestured around at the trees. “You’ve seen palms such as this, haven’t you?”
She frowned. “How do you know?”
“Elijah said that you traveled to the Pacific Ocean, by way of South America.”
She nodded, staring so long at some nearby palm fronds they blurred into an abstract fringe.
“You’ve never spoken of it,” he observed softly.
“Because it was…an ordeal. A terrible time in my life. I was traveling to a place called California. A newer American territory where gold had just been discovered. That’s where Robbie’s parents sent him. He disappeared, and Elijah and I went to…”
She blinked, breathing hard.
“I see,” Nicholas said, his voice gentle.
“Opium,” she whispered, then cleared her throat. “He died in an opium den. But you’d guessed that already, hadn’t you? Maybe even that first day I was in your office?” Hearing the accusation in her voice, the anger, she shook her head. “Hardly fair of me to be distressed that you pay such attention. Forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive. I’m—I’m sorry for your suffering. For Robbie’s.”
Helen nodded, grateful that he, too, referred to Robbie by name rather than calling him her husband. She’d never been a true wife, and he’d never been a husband to her, not in any sense.
“The voyage wasn’t even all that long ago—but it’s like a nightmare whose details I’m glad to forget. Yes, these tropical plants and trees, they’re familiar. We passed by land covered with dense tropical forest. Stopped at ports surrounded by them.”
“Come. I’d like to introduce you to a mature old fellow—a tree.”
Helen accepted Nicholas’s arm and followed him deeper into the center of the greenhouse. He gave her all the time she wished to stare up at the large, airy ceiling and the supportive ironwork before leading her to the southern end of the building.
He gestured toward a large potted palm. “The pride of Kew’s palm collection. Brought to England in 1775.”
Her eyes widened. “From where?”
“South Africa.”
She was speechless for a time as various harrowing thoughts competed in her mind.
Elijah should have traveled around the southern tip of Africa by now. Did he sail near the place from which this tree was taken? Where is Elijah now?Please let him be safe.
After sending her prayer off through the glazed roof, she focused on her reaction to the history of the tree. “Oh! You poor, remarkable thing! Carried on a ship for months seventy-five years ago!”
“Why poor?”
“It had no say, did it? They uprooted it against its will. Brought to England to be shown off as an exotic discovery.”
“All of that is true. But it’s thrived here. Who can say it would have even survived had someone had not brought it here? With the construction of Palm House, especially, it’s in the perfect environment.”
“You believe it was a kindness for it to have been forced here?”
“You’ve given voice to the difficulties of surviving in this world as a woman, Helen. A tree growing near men and women is at risk, too, isn’t it? If it’s not to be shown off as an exotic discovery, it’s being chopped down for our convenience. To be fashioned into something else—a building. A ship, perhaps. You know better than anyone. Sometimes they’re simply burned. This tree, at least, escaped those fates, didn’t it?”
She closed her eyes for a moment. The kinship she felt with this palm plucked from the earth had somehow made her forget her very own role in felling trees for human benefit.Lord, my hypocrisy!
Nicholas took her hand and she opened her eyes.
He glanced at the tree, then met her gaze. “This palm is a survivor. I believe there is something to be celebrated in how it has thrived in a place so far from home. As to the question of force and whether it was a kindness? I couldn’t say on behalf of the tree. I, too, was brought to England, and as a very young boy. Thatwasa kindness, for I was unlikely to survive had we stayed in Constantinople. Yet there was suffering in it, too even if I don’t remember it. I was uprooted just as that palm was.”
Helen squeezed his hand. “You were. Yet you grew deep roots here. Thrived like this tree. Your entire family has. You’re all strong.”
“As you are. You’ve been here but a few months, and you seem well here, too.”
She smiled. “I can’t deny that. It’s thanks to you and your family that I’ve been this…content here.”
“You could grow roots in England as well, couldn’t you?”
Unable to bear his golden regard and the question, she looked back to the palm. “I’m neither a child nor a tree, am I?Iwill choose where I go. I came here of my own volition. Perhaps I will choose to stay. But I’d rather die than be forced.”
