Father read the letter aloud to us sitting around the parlour fire after dinner, and a grim silence fel l after he was finished, Grace sat as if frozen; if it hadn’t been for the firelight she would have been white as milk, her hands clenched into fists in her lap, twisting her apron. Even the babies were quiet; I held Mercy, who looked up at me with big eyes.
“I’ll have to go,” said Father. Robbie Tucker was an almost tangible presence in the room. “Tom Bradley should be stopping by here any day now; I can go south with them.”
And so it was. Tom arrived a week later, and declared himself delighted to have Father’s company all the way south to the city again. The letter had cast a pall over all of us that the fine clear autumn weather and the babies’ high spirits did nothing to dispel; and it closed down as tightly as a shroud when Father had gone. The worst of it was watching Grace turn cold and white and anxious again, seeing in her a helpless, despairing sort of excitement that she could not quite suppress.
Father told us not to look for him before the spring, when traveling would be easier. But it was a col d night in late March, with the snow nearly a foot thick on the ground after a sudden blizzard, when the front door was thrown open and Father stood on the threshold. Ger strode forwards and caught him in his arms as he staggered, and then half carried him to a seat near the fire. As he sank down with a sigh we all noticed that in his hand he held a rose: a great scarlet rose, bigger than any we had seen before, in full and perfect bloom. “Here, Beauty,” he said to me, and held it out. I took it, my hand trembling a little, and stood gazing at it. I had never seen such a lovely thing.
When Father had set out last autumn he had asked us girls if there was anything he could bring us from the city. No, we said: Our only wish is that you should come home to us soon and safely.
“Oh, come now, children,” he said. “Pretty girls want pretty things: What little trinkets do you secretly think about?” We looked at one another, not sure what we should say; and then Hope laughed a little and kissed him and said, “Oh, bring us ropes of pearls and rubies and emeralds, because we haven’t a thing to wear the next time we visit the King and Queen.” We all laughed then, Father too, but I thought his eyes looked hurt; so a little later I said to him, “Father, there is something you can bring me—I’d love to plant some roses here, around the house. If you could buy some seeds that are not too dear, in a few years we’ll have a garden that will be the envy of all Blue Hill,” He smiled and promised that he w ould try.
I remembered this now, five months later, the snow-cold stem against my fingers. We stood like a Christmas tableau, focused on the huge nodding rose in my hand, snow dripping softly off its crimson petals; then a blast from the still-open door shook us, as it seemed, from sleep. Grace said, “I’ll put some water in a cup for it,” and went to the kitchen. As I went to close the door, I saw a laden horse standing forlorn in the snow; it raised its head and pricked its ears at me. I hadn’t bothered to think that Father must have traveled with some kit besides a scarlet rose. I handed the rose to Grace and said, “I’ll see to the horse.” Ger followed me, and it happened that I needed his assistance, because the saddle-bags were full and very heavy.
When we returned, Father was sipping some hastily warmed cider, and the silence still lay as thick as the snow outside. Ger and I dumped the leather satchels into a corner near the door, and all but forgot them. As we took our places again by the fire, Hope knelt down in front of Father and put her hands in his lap; and when he looked at her, she said gently: “What has happened since you left us, Father?”
He shook his head. “There’s too much to tell it all now. I am tired, and must sleep,” and we noticed how old and frail he looked, and his eyes were heavy and sunken. He looked up at Grace: “I am sorry, child, but it was not the Raven.” Grace bowed her head. “It was the Merlyn; she hadn’t been drowned after all.” He fell silent again for several minutes, while the firelight chased shadows across his weary face.
“I’ve brought back a little money, and a few things; not much.” Ger and I caught each other giving the full saddle-bags puz7led looks; but we said nothing.
Grace had set the rose, now standing in a tall pottery cup of water, on the mantelpiece above the parlour fire. Father looked up at it, and all our eyes were drawn after his. “Do you like it, Beauty, child?”
he said. “Yes, indeed, Father,” I said, wondering; “I have never seen its like.”
He said, as if in a trance, staring at the flower: “Little you know what so simple a thing has cost me”; and as he finished speaking, a petal fell from the rose, although it was unharmed and blooming. The petal turned in the air as it fell, as if it were so feather-light that the warm eddies of air from the fire could lift it;
and the firelight seemed to gild it. But it struck the floor with an audible clink, like a dropped coin. Ger bent down and picked it up: It was a bright yellow colour. He took it between his fingers, and with a little effort bent it slightly. “It’s gold,” he said quietly.
Father stood up as if his back hurt him. “Not now,” he said in response to our awed faces.
“Tomorrow I will tell you all my story. Will you help me upstairs?” he said to Grace; and the rest of us looked after them when they had gone. Hope banked the fire, and we went our ways to bed. The saddle-bags lay untouched where Ger and I had set them; he gave them hardly a glance as he barred the door.
I dreamed that the stream from the enchanted wood turned to liquid gold, and its voice as it ran over the rocks was as soft as silk; and a great red griffin wheeled over our meadow, shadowing the house with its wings.
Part Two
1
Father was still asleep when the rest of us ate a silent breakfast and started the day’s work. After I’d finished eating went into the parlour to look at the rose again: It was still there—I hadn’t dreamed that, at least. The golden petal lay on the mantelpiece where Ger had set it the night before; it teetered gently on its curved base when I looked closely at it, but that must have been a draft in the room. The rose had opened no wider; it was as though it had been frozen at the moment of its most perfect beauty. Looking at it—its perfume filled the whole room—I found it easy to believe that this rose would never fade and die. I went out the front door and shut it softly behind me, feeling that I had just emerged from a magician’s cave.