into disuse.
No one had seemed to mind when she had cobbled together the spare furnishings from the estate’s castoffs. Once she set her mind upon creating a semblance of the laboratory they’d had at Miss Hadley’s school, Celia had not rested until it was complete and she could take up her study as before. As she had told Viscount Darling, she was nothing if not resolute of purpose.
Only here was she entirely her own person. Only here, had she been able to order her time as she pleased. She had been able to make her own decisions about what plants to study, and how to go about the work of recording her finds. She had found her life’s true purpose and dared to make her dreams a reality.
After opening the shutters, she checked on the previous session’s drawings. She had completed a study of the carnivorous common bladderwort, Utricularia vulgaris . The microscopic inspection of the plant had revealed its submerged bladders had trapped water fleas and even a very small tadpole, all of which she had recorded in minute detail. The series of drawings were complete and dry. She took them down from the drying racks she’d improvised from baker’s metal shelves and brought the last one she’d completed over to the light. The colors looked especially good. It had been difficult to achieve the bright intense yellow of the orchidlike blossoms and the vibrant soft green of the stem and root system. All in all, the Utricularia vulgaris series was a masterpiece.
It was a painstaking process she’d come up with, but in the absence of etching, which she knew nothing about, she had taken to drawing the plants first with pencil and then mixing watercolors to bring the drawings to vivid life. After the watercolor had dried, she traced over the pencil lines carefully with black India ink, to make the important outline of the plant fresh and crisp and easily discernible. Each drawing took days, but she did them in batches so every day she had several at different stages of development and completion on which to work.
As the current drawings were all dry, she collected them into a leather folio. There were by her last count three hundred and twenty-two full color drawings upon which her proposed masterwork, “A Survey of the Freshwater Plants of Devon,” would be based.
While Bains sat at the table to work on her own drawings of designs for gowns, Celia changed her shoes into the sturdy leather boots she kept by the door. Her own halfboots would leak like an old rowboat, but the tall, oiled leather boots kept her nice and dry. She also took down from their pegs her long oiled canvas work apron and redingote.
It was the perfect day to collect the specimen of Fontinalis antipyretica she had seen growing in the stream below the millpond. She had just enough of the right color paint to capture the deep, verdant green of the slow-growing willow moss.
“I’m heading down to the creek, Bains.” Celia picked up the empty wooden pails she kept for collecting and ducked out the door.
“Mind you wear your gloves,” cautioned Bains. “Those rope handles will rough up your hands proper, if you’re not careful. Then what’d Lady Caroline say, I ask you?”
“I have my gloves, Bains.” Celia’s poor mama never suspected why Celia went through so many pairs of riding gloves. “I’ll be back within the hour. I know just where to get what I want. You work on your drawings until I come back. Mind you don’t use up all that green. That pigment’s expensive, Bains.”
“Don’t need you to tell me, miss. Now you be careful down that bank.”
As Celia had been walking along the banks in question for more than fifteen summers, she paid Bains no mind, heading across the cart track and down the wooded hillside. It was the perfect day for a ramble in the woods, bright and clear. A glorious summer morning. Birdsong filled the wood, and soon the musical fall of water could be heard tumbling downstream over rocks and into pools. She
No one had seemed to mind when she had cobbled together the spare furnishings from the estate’s castoffs. Once she set her mind upon creating a semblance of the laboratory they’d had at Miss Hadley’s school, Celia had not rested until it was complete and she could take up her study as before. As she had told Viscount Darling, she was nothing if not resolute of purpose.
Only here was she entirely her own person. Only here, had she been able to order her time as she pleased. She had been able to make her own decisions about what plants to study, and how to go about the work of recording her finds. She had found her life’s true purpose and dared to make her dreams a reality.
After opening the shutters, she checked on the previous session’s drawings. She had completed a study of the carnivorous common bladderwort, Utricularia vulgaris . The microscopic inspection of the plant had revealed its submerged bladders had trapped water fleas and even a very small tadpole, all of which she had recorded in minute detail. The series of drawings were complete and dry. She took them down from the drying racks she’d improvised from baker’s metal shelves and brought the last one she’d completed over to the light. The colors looked especially good. It had been difficult to achieve the bright intense yellow of the orchidlike blossoms and the vibrant soft green of the stem and root system. All in all, the Utricularia vulgaris series was a masterpiece.
It was a painstaking process she’d come up with, but in the absence of etching, which she knew nothing about, she had taken to drawing the plants first with pencil and then mixing watercolors to bring the drawings to vivid life. After the watercolor had dried, she traced over the pencil lines carefully with black India ink, to make the important outline of the plant fresh and crisp and easily discernible. Each drawing took days, but she did them in batches so every day she had several at different stages of development and completion on which to work.
As the current drawings were all dry, she collected them into a leather folio. There were by her last count three hundred and twenty-two full color drawings upon which her proposed masterwork, “A Survey of the Freshwater Plants of Devon,” would be based.
While Bains sat at the table to work on her own drawings of designs for gowns, Celia changed her shoes into the sturdy leather boots she kept by the door. Her own halfboots would leak like an old rowboat, but the tall, oiled leather boots kept her nice and dry. She also took down from their pegs her long oiled canvas work apron and redingote.
It was the perfect day to collect the specimen of Fontinalis antipyretica she had seen growing in the stream below the millpond. She had just enough of the right color paint to capture the deep, verdant green of the slow-growing willow moss.
“I’m heading down to the creek, Bains.” Celia picked up the empty wooden pails she kept for collecting and ducked out the door.
“Mind you wear your gloves,” cautioned Bains. “Those rope handles will rough up your hands proper, if you’re not careful. Then what’d Lady Caroline say, I ask you?”
“I have my gloves, Bains.” Celia’s poor mama never suspected why Celia went through so many pairs of riding gloves. “I’ll be back within the hour. I know just where to get what I want. You work on your drawings until I come back. Mind you don’t use up all that green. That pigment’s expensive, Bains.”
“Don’t need you to tell me, miss. Now you be careful down that bank.”
As Celia had been walking along the banks in question for more than fifteen summers, she paid Bains no mind, heading across the cart track and down the wooded hillside. It was the perfect day for a ramble in the woods, bright and clear. A glorious summer morning. Birdsong filled the wood, and soon the musical fall of water could be heard tumbling downstream over rocks and into pools. She
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