Mark Dunn - American Decameron

Penny Rutland was an only child. She was also an only grandchild on her father’s side. The uniqueness of this status placed a heavy burden upon the twelve-year-old. For the last six years, she had been sent to her paternal grandparents’ landed estate on the Western Promenade in Portland to spend the summer in the constant company of her sixty-year-old forebear who, though under-demonstrative in her affection for the girl, did love her in her own way and sought to instruct her in all those things that a young lady of good breeding and cultivated refinement should know. Penny would have liked to romp and play with the servants’ children, but she couldn’t risk soiling her pinafore. She would have liked to sit upon the vespertine verandah and listen to war stories told by Mrs. Rutland’s butler Jenkins, who had served as a spy for the Union Army during the Civil War, but there were, according to Penny’s grandmother, far more ladylike and much more productive things for the young girl to be doing in her postprandial hours.

There were teas — these attended by her grandmother’s West End friends — and there were gatherings of the distaff members of St. Luke’s Cathedral for the purpose of discussing matters of both a spiritual and morally inculcating nature. Penny was expected to sit politely in white muslin with her hands folded neatly in her lap and to be the perfect little girl. Penny was expected to knit when her grandmother desired a knitting companion and to read to her grandmother when she sought a mellifluous rendering of one of Mrs. Rutland’s favorite books, and each day Penny was required to accompany her grandmother in her daily matutinal promenade through her English rose garden, which was the woman’s pride and joy and one of the finest private rose gardens in the state.

While Penny didn’t dread her rosaceous catechism at her grandmother’s side, there were fifteen or twenty things she would rather have been doing on these cool, dewy summer mornings. But Penny was a good girl and properly indulgent of her grandmother’s efforts to instill in her a love of the floral, and more specifically to share with her all the many mysteries and particulars of rose horticulture, including the salient aspects of both the hybrid perpetuals and the tea roses (which do quite well in light soil if manure is added and plenty of water is given in the dry season).

“And what have we here?” asked Mrs. Rutland, suspending her stroll alongside her granddaughter to linger before a peculiar-hued tea rose climbing upon the old stone wall that encompassed the garden. The rose was yellow with streaks of red and gold — a distinct coloration that upon some earlier tutorial session Mrs. Rutland had compared to a J.M.W. Turner sunset.

“Is that the L’Ideal?” asked Penny.

Mrs. Rutland nodded and smiled approvingly.

“And this variety here, sitting low against the wall?”

Penny thought for a moment and said, “The Gustave Regan?”

“Not Regan , my dear. Regis .”

“Regis,” repeated Penny.

“And those lovely creamy yellow buds — what did I tell you they were often used for?”

“For button holes?”

“Precisely, dear girl. They make the most exquisite button holes.”

“May I sniff them?”

“Oh, my darling girl, you may sniff any rose in your grandmother’s garden. That is the twofold reward bestowed upon us by the most beneficent family Rosaceae. Its constituents are ravishing to behold with the eye and they are delicious in fragrance — except for the Baroness Rothschild over there, a nearly faultless rose both in its color and aesthetic composition but without any scent whatsoever. A rose without a scent. It’s absolute apostasy! Yet I grow the Baroness for her beauty and overlook her deficiency as best as I am able, for the lovely pale pink of her petals delights and enchants. Look all about you, child. Have you ever seen in one singular spot so many delectable variations of color? All the different whites and yellows and salmons and pinks and reds? Oh, such reds! A near riot! It’s my favorite color, I must confess. Is it your favorite color, Penny?”

“I like red. I like blue, as well.”

“And who could not like blue? How blue the sky is this morning! How beautiful the world on a day like this. Now, shall we visit the pillar roses or spend a few minutes with the dwarf teas?”

“I’d be happy spending time with either one,” said Penny. She took a parting sniff of the Gustave Regis. The sweet scent was strong; all around her the air was infused with its pungent redolence.

“Grandmother, may I ask you a question?”

“Of course you may, Penny. There is so much to learn about the World Rosaceae. There is much still for me to know. Should we find the gardener and put our questions to him ?”

Penny shook her head. Then she swallowed and said, “Grandmother, when I woke this morning there was blood on the inside of my panties. It was…” Penny looked about, her eyes settling upon a cluster of blackish-maroon blossoms. “… this color.”

“That is the Prince Camille de Rohan, my dear. It’s one of the finest dark roses to be had and extremely difficult to grow. Hardman and I, we have been quite astonished by the extent to which it has flourished here. And once the plant is established in full, we shall be amply blessed by a prodigious number of blossoms.”

“I have blood in my panties, Grandmother. Should I see a doctor?”

Mrs. Rutland shook her head.

“What am I to do?”

“Has your mother not spoken with you about this?”

“I’ve never bled before.”

“She will speak with you, I’m certain, when you return home in the fall. Let’s go and see how Madame Plantier and the Marquis of Salisbury are doing.”

Mrs. Rutland walked in silence to another section of the rose garden and examined the forenamed pillar and her companion tea rose, as well as their floral friends Grace Darling and Marie van Houtte, the latter festooned in soft blossoms of striking pale lemon yellow, each petal tinged with delicate pink along the edges. Mrs. Rutland sighed contentedly. “This could very well be my favorite among all my tea roses. Shall we make a bouquet of these beauties for the front hall?”

“What if I bleed again?”

“It is nothing with which to concern yourself. It will all be explained to you in due time.”

“Will you explain it to me?”

“I think it best that you discuss this with your mother.”

“Mother doesn’t discuss things with me. She treats me as if I’m still seven.”

“That will change, I assure you. This hedge here. Directly behind you. Do you recall the name of this variety?”

“Something to do with New Orleans,” sighed Penny.

“You very nearly have it. This is Léopoldine d’Orléans. And there is the Dundee Rambler. Note how luxuriantly it rambles!”

“Why won’t you tell me the things that really matter to me!” Penny suddenly exclaimed. “What is wrong with me? Am I going to bleed to death?”

“Your mother has been derelict. It is not my place to discuss such things with you. I am the grandmother. And, Penny, you will refrain from ever raising your voice to me again. My gracious word!”

With that, Penny’s unwontedly flustered grandmother gathered her skirts in one hand and fled the garden. The gardener, Hardman, who was nearby upon his hands and knees weeding and therefore wasn’t noticed by Mrs. Rutland, now stood up to make himself known to Penny.

“The garden is nearly perfect,” he said. “I can’t imagine what she saw that has put her in such an agitated state.”