Song of the Sea Maid by Rebecca Mascull Page B

different species of plants, flowers, vegetables and fruits he grows in the ground, in the pond and the glasshouse. He tells me that at other times of the year he grows the bulbs of hyacinths, tulipsanddaffodils, as well as medicinal plants, such as mandrake and gentian. We discuss types of seeds, plant diseases and breeding. He is a gentle, kindly man and a good teacher, to myself and Paul; needless to say my childhood fears of apprenticeship fade when I see Mr Dawes’s patience with the boy.
    I collect insects – butterflies, ladybirds, beetles, honey bees, dragonflies – and small animals: frogs, toads, mice and shrews. I kill one of each and preserve them, others I perform dissections upon and thus learn something of anatomy. Some I have kept in cages or jars for a short time, fed them a range of foods, medicines and liquors to see which thrived, which grew sickly, which died. I have removed the limbs of some small animals, used poultices of different herbs and chemicals on the wounds, to see which subjects succumb to infection and death, and which survive, or if any succeed in growing back a leg. Jane says I am awfully cruel, yet Mr Applebee and I know what we are about. It is science and science is a deity to me. There is no right or wrong when it comes to the truth; there is the fact and the fiction, the truth and the error, and little else matters. Certainly not a shrew’s comforts.
    I am permitted the run of the house, yet mostly find myself in the curiosities room with my tutor, the kitchen with Susan, my bedroom with Jane, or in the garden with Mr Dawes. My benefactor still invites me into the withdrawing room for our chat, the same as we have done these past years, only it is nightly now, rather than weekly. He uses this time also to instruct me in the languages of Portuguese and Spanish, of which he has learned much in his dealings with these countries over the years. I use the Latin taught me by Mr Applebee to improve them. Mr Woods is often out carousing, despite his protestations more or less once each month that he will give up. He goes to the coffee shops for gossip and trade every morning, then to the dockyards to oversee his shipments, back for dinner each evening with me, and more often than not out for drinks with his business associates. When we talk I quiz him about his days on the sea, where he went and what he saw. He tells me his favourite thing was jaunting between the islands that lay near Spain and Portugal, where he tried all the classes of wine and other alcohol he could lay his hands on. His drunken exploits proved his fortune, as he became such an expert in them that he set up his own exporting business and outsold all his rivals. And often he strays into the subject – tiresome to me – of how his riches secured his entry into polite society and how fortunate he has been to take his place within some of the finest households in London.
    ‘Soon you must enter society, my dear,’ Mr Woods exhorts me. ‘Always shut up in that fusty old room. You are such a winsome thing. Soon you will attend balls, and evenings of entertainment and suchlike. I will introduce you to the quality ladies hereabout and one fortunate day you will meet a fine young gentleman, perhaps one of a bookish bent to suit your talents, and you will marry.’
    ‘But I have no interest in balls or evenings or drink or the ladies of Bloomsbury Square, or anywhere else for that matter, and certainly not marriage.’
    ‘But this is quite unnatural, for a young lady or indeed any young person. I must say, I do wonder these days what is to become of our youth, as the men seem to sink into effeminacy and the ladies advance to boldness. It is all quite against nature, and we will in some horrid future bemoan the fact that the sexes will become quite the same, their characteristic and delightful differences become confounded and lost.’
    As Matron before him, Mr Woods seeks to engage me in matrimony with some as yet unknown