Originally written for the 2010 Yuletide Treasure exchange. No copyright infringement is intended.
At the height of summer, when the girls had gone home for their holidays and all the staff but one had cleared out as well, Frank Blossom liked to come up to the school and potter about the gardens and greenhouse undisturbed. There were beetroots and courgettes to harvest, and cabbage seedlings and new potatoes to tend, and he was happy and at peace there, watering and pruning and working out new ways to stake tomatoes and tie up vines. More often than not, he lost track of the hours and glanced up to realise a whole afternoon had passed, and it was time to make his way back down the hill for his small, solitary tea.
The only area in the greenhouse that he never touched, on the sensible principle that such things were best left alone, was Miss Hardbroom's herb bed. Constance got most of the ingredients for her potions from the fields—the girls had told him, falling about with giggles as they tried to outdo each other with the best HB impression, how the herbs must be picked at the proper moment and in the proper manner—but she cultivated a few indoors as well, for reasons Frank didn't know and hadn't had occasion to ask. He'd never seen her working in the herb bed, but she clearly visited often when no one was around, because the plants were tidy and well cared for, arrayed in rigid ranks that reminded him of his miserable four years in the army.
Except for that hellebore there, he thought, pausing a moment as he spotted a sickly-looking specimen. That one's not at all well.
He got up with a groan—his bad knee was very stiff these days, even in warm weather—and walked over, trowel in hand, to inspect the ailing hellebore. It hadn't got its white winter flowers yet, and the way it was looking, he doubted it would last that long without some help. He was standing over it, wondering whether he ought to do something about it himself, or go into the castle proper and report it to its owner, when a dreadful voice rang out behind him like the crack of doom.
"FRANK BLOSSOM, WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY HERBS?"
"Not a thing, Miss Hardbroom." Frank turned, arms spread out to show her his innocence. Her gaze went straight to the trowel, and he dropped it automatically, as if she'd caught him holding a bloodied murder weapon. She looked so enraged that he braced himself to be turned into something—a warty toad, or a lizard, or perhaps a frog. It might not be so bad to be a frog this time of year, he thought; he'd be nice and cool in the mud down by the pond, and he'd liked swimming when he was a boy. They did say you never forgot how. Soon he'd find out if they were right.
When a few seconds had passed and he was still human, he decided he was safe and cleared his throat. "I was just noticing that hellebore," he said, and pointed. "It's looking a bit peaky, don't you think?"
Constance's dark eyebrows arched sceptically, and Frank stepped back so she could come closer and bend down to look. Her summer wardrobe varied from her winter wardrobe only in its weight, he saw: she'd changed the high-necked black velvet and brocade for high-necked black broadcloth with a fine, subtle lustre to it. The word sensual was not in Frank Blossom's everyday vocabulary, but he had noticed more than once that Miss Hardbroom wore fabrics that made you want to touch them, which was strange, considering she'd probably strike anyone who dared to try it dead on the spot. He could no more imagine fondling Constance Hardbroom's skirts than he could picture himself going into a church and washing the garden soil off his hands in the baptismal font.
"You're right," Constance said, looking back over her shoulder at him. The anger had drained out of her face, leaving nothing but a faint pink flush behind on her cheeks. "Well spotted. It isn't black rot, thank goodness, or I'd have to pull them all up."
"Aphids probably," Frank suggested. "I can spray it for you. Soap and water kills them-"
"Thank you, no," Constance said coolly. "Potions are far more effective than your home remedies. I shall brew the proper mixture tonight." She straightened up and gave him an appraising look. "I didn't know you knew about herbs too, Mr Blossom."
"I don't really," said Frank, stooping to pick up his dropped trowel. "I'm more of a vegetable man, as you know, Miss Hardbroom. But we had hellebore in our garden at home, when I was a little boy. My mum called it Christmas rose, and said I wasn't to touch it because it was poisonous."
"Quite right," said Constance. An odd, uncomfortable look came over her, as if she wanted to say something else, but weren't certain what it ought to be. "Do you—would you be interested in knowing more about it?"
Frank nodded. "If you don't mind telling me."
"Not at all," said Constance, and launched into a knowledgeable lecture about the properties of Helleborus niger, its history, its uses in magic and medicine, and how it differed from Helleborus foetidus, also known as stinking hellebore. It was more information than Frank had expected, but he was so glad to be out of trouble for lurking round the herb bed, and so bemused by the change in Constance's demeanour once she was holding forth on a subject she enjoyed, that he kept listening and asking questions. At the back of his mind, he wondered whether she was going on this way because she missed having a captive audience to talk at, or because she'd been lonesome, all on her own in the school for the last month with only her cat for company. He would have gone bonkers by now if it were him—he liked spending quiet time with his veg, but he liked to chat with the neighbours and take his nephew out for a treat, too—but Miss Hardbroom was not like other people.
And how, he thought, feeling giddy as she rattled off the various species and sub-species among the caulescent and acaulescent types of hellebore, and explained how one might tell them apart.
At last, she wound down, and an awkward silence fell between them. Frank, who thought he had more than earned a turn at showing off his own horticultural knowledge, broke it by asking if she would like to see the lettuces he was growing for winter, and with stiff politeness, she acquiesced and allowed herself to be ushered to that section of the greenhouse.
"Ugh! What on earth is that rubbish?" She wrinkled up her nose in disapproval.
"It's not rubbish!" said Frank, stung. "It's six months worth of salad, that's what it is."
"Not the lettuces, Mr Blossom," Constance snapped, pointing. "Those."
pFrank followed her finger to the hand-drawn and coloured signs, fastened to sticks, that marked off the different types of cabbage and lettuce."Oh, those. A few of the girls made them for me," he said, unable to keep a fond note out of his voice. "The youngest ones, some of them still like to do colouring, you know. They outgrow it by second year, mostly." He looked sidelong at Constance, whose face, in profile, was unreadable. "I dare say they'd do some for your herbs too, Miss Hardbroom, if you wanted them to."
"Why would I want a lot of garish, poorly lettered notices stuck all over my herb bed to tell me what I already know?" Constance folded her arms across her chest in a huff. "I planted the motherwort and the wormwood and the mullein and the mandragora precisely where I meant to. I highly doubt they have pulled up their roots and changed places to confuse me."
"I don't need labels to tell me what's what either," Frank said. "But the girls enjoy making them, and as they aren't allowed to help me with the real gardening anymore—" He saw Constance go rigid with impending rage and hastily amended what he was about to say. "They like doing it, that's all. They're only children, like my nephew Charlie. It doesn't hurt to let them have their bit of fun."
"I see. And I suppose you think I ought to let them have more … fun." Her finely shaped lips curled, as if the final word tasted as toxic as the hellebore they'd just been discussing, and he began to worry that he might end up as a frog after all before the day was over.
"Well," he said, choosing the words with care, "you are rather strict with them. For their own good, I'm sure."
He wondered whether Constance was going to explode, but instead she sighed, as if weary, and sat down on an upturned barrel, smoothing her pristine black skirt beneath her.
"Of course it's for their own good, Mr Blossom," she said. "Think of how you grow your garden. You can't spend all your time coddling the plants, crooning away to them about how lovely they are and how many prizes they're going to win. You've got to be tough on them too; pinch them back hard and prune them when they need it. Isn't that so?"
Frank felt an embarrassed warmth begin to crawl up out of his shirt collar toward his face. The girls knew he talked and sang to the plants, of course, but how did she? Did she really spy on people invisibly, the way the girls said? He'd told them that was nonsense, and unkind to boot, but perhaps it wasn't.
"Isn't that so?" Constance prompted.
"Yes, Miss."
"So it is. And children are no different. Those girls are spoilt and indulged and excused by everyone else in their lives-by their parents, by Miss Cackle and the other teachers, and by the non-teaching staff as well. Yes, yes, I know you mean well, but you do. Someone must do the difficult and painful work to ensure they grow up well disciplined in mind and body, and that, Mr Blossom, is my thankless task. My only hope is that one day they shall be more grateful to me than your lettuces are to you." She glanced up at the sky through the glass greenhouse roof. "And now, I should be going. I left a potion to cool, and it ought to be ready for bottling by now."
Frank realised that he'd been holding onto his dirt-caked trowel all this time, and then that it was very warm in the greenhouse. He laid the trowel down near the lettuces and wiped his moist brow with his sleeve.
"Is that what you do all summer? Brew potions?"
"Unless I have a speaking engagement to attend, yes."
"Isn't it awfully lonely?" Frank asked. "I'd have thought you would want to visit your family, like Miss Cackle, or go travelling, like Miss Drill. She's in the south of France right now, you know."
"She wrote to you?" Constance's voice was suddenly sharp.
"Only a postcard," said Frank, confused. "Shouldn't she have?"
"It makes no difference to me, Mr Blossom. I was curious, that's all. And in answer to your question, I don't mind being here on my own. I have work to get on with, and books to read, and Morgana is quite a conversationalist."
Cats can't talk, Frank started to say, but realised just in time that this was what passed for a joke in Constance Hardbroom's world. He mustered up a halfhearted chuckle, so as not to disappoint her.
"Still," he said, "I was thinking ..." He paused. He wanted to offer her a bit of companionship, even though she'd said she didn't need it, but his first thought-to invite her home with him for a meal-revealed itself to be a terrible idea on closer inspection. Not only could he not imagine Constance stepping over the door sill of his tiny cottage, stiff-backed and regal in her long, tight dress and high-heeled boots, but the firestorm of gossip it would spark off didn't bear thinking about. The entire village had been waiting for him to bring a woman round since his wife had died, and the fact that Constance was quite beautiful, in a severe and terrifying sort of way, would only make the rumours worse.
"What were you thinking, Mr Blossom?" Constance demanded with more than a little impatience. "I haven't got all afternoon."
"I was only thinking," said Frank, doing just that even as he spoke, "that if you ever wanted someone to cook a meal for you-with Mrs Tapioca being away and all-that you should tell me. I'm a fair hand in the kitchen-not so much as in the garden, but I do all right. With the ordinary stuff, anyway."
Constance looked thoroughly nonplussed by this, as if she hadn't even thought of food in days. Knowing what he knew about her personal habits, Frank suspected she hadn't.
"I don't believe that will be necessary, Mr Blossom," she said. "But thank you. It's a very kind offer. And now I really must be going." Crossing her arms, she vanished in the sort of witchy flash that always made him nervous, and in this case, very much afraid that she had got the wrong idea about his intentions. He'd truly only meant to be friendly, but perhaps "friendly" and "Miss Hardbroom" simply weren't meant to co-exist. He went back to his work with a sigh, feeling glad that at least Constance wasn't one to plot revenge: if she'd wanted to hex him or curse him or hit him in the face, she would have done it straight away and made no apologies for it.
He'd had just finished loading his wheelbarrow with thinned-out seedlings and dead leaves and vines for the compost heap when, at the corner of his eye, he saw another flash.
"Mr Blossom!"
"Yes, Miss Hardbroom?"
"The girls may make labels for the herbs if they like," Constance said. She paused, and a strange expression-more a pained grimace than a smile-tugged at the corners of her mouth. "But don't tell them that I said so. It wouldn't do to let them think I approved of their ... fun."
Frank grinned, relieved. "It'll be our secret," he said, and rolled the wheelbarrow through the greenhouse door into the golden August afternoon.