Meanwhile the Reverend Arthur, with growing solicitude, was walking his
garden as in a dream, explaining to his companion the progress of his
flowers, his vegetables, and his fruit.
The beds were searched for strawberries that were not ready; the wall
trees were looked at reproachfully for not bearing ripe fruit months
before their time; and the roses, that should have been in perfection,
were grieved over for their fall during the week-past storm.
It was wonderful to him what sweet and earnest interest this fair young
creature took in his pursuits, and how eagerly she listened to his
discourse when, down by the beehives, he explained the habits of his
bees, and removed screens to let her see the working insects within.
Miss Mary Rosebury took an interest in his garden and in his botanical
pursuits, but nothing like this. She did not keep picking weeds and
wild flowers from beneath the hedge, and listen with rapt attention
while he pointed out the class, the qualities, and peculiarities of the
plant.
Helen Perowne did, and it was quite a privilege to a weed to be picked,
as was that stitchwort that had run its long trailing growth right up in
the hedge, so as to give its pale green leaves and regular white
cut-edged blossoms a good long bathe in the sunshine where the insects
played.
"I have often seen these little white flowers in the hedges," she said
softly. "I suppose they are too insignificant to have a name?"
She stooped and picked the flower as she spoke, looking in her
companion's eyes for an answer.
"Insignificant? No!" he cried, warming to his task. "No flower is
insignificant. The very smallest have beauties that perhaps we cannot
see."
"Indeed," she said; and he looked at the blue veins beneath the
transparent skin, as Helen held up the flower. "Then has this a name?"
"Yes," he said, rousing himself from a strange reverie, "a very simple,
homely name--the stitchwort. Later on in the season you will find
myriads of its smaller relative, the lesser stitchwort. They belong to
the chickweed tribe."
"Not the chickweed with which I used to feed my dear little bird that
died?"
"The very same," he replied, smiling. "Next time you pluck a bunch you
will see that, though tiny, the flowers strangely resemble these."
"And the lesser stitchwort?"
"Yes?" he said, inquiringly. "Is it like this?"
"Nearly the same, only the flowers are half the size."
"And it grows where?"
"In similar places--by hedges and ditches."
"But you said something about time."
"Yes," replied the Reverend Arthur, who was thinking how wondrous
pleasant it would be to go on teaching botany to such a pupil for
evermore. "Yes, it is a couple of months, say, later than the great
stitchwort."
"Ah!" said Helen, with a sigh. "By that time I shall be far away."
The stitchwort fell to the ground, and they walked on together, with
Helen, Circe-like, transforming the meek, studious, elderly man by her
side, so that he was ready to obey her slightest whim, eagerly trying
the while to explain each object upon which her eye seemed to rest;
while she, glorying in her new power, led him on and on, with soft word,
and glance, and sigh.
They had been at least an hour in the garden when they reached the
vinery, through whose open door came the sweet, inviting scent of the
luxuriant tender growth.
"What place is this?" she cried.
"My vinery. May I show you in?"
"It would give you so much trouble."
"Trouble?" he said; and taking off his hat he drew back for her to
enter.
"And will all those running things bear grapes?" she asked, as, throwing
back her head and displaying the soft contour of her beautifully moulded
throat, she gazed up at the tendril-handed vines.
"Yes," he said, dreamily, "these are the young bunches with berries
scarcely set. You see they grow too fast. I have to break off large
pieces to keep them back, and tie them to those wires overhead."
"Oh, do show me, Mr Rosebury?" she cried, with childlike eagerness.
"Yes," he said, smiling; "but I must climb up there."
"What, on to that board?"
"Yes, and tie them with this strong foreign grass."
"Oh, how interesting! How beautiful!" she cried, her red lips parted,
and showing the little regular white teeth within. "I never thought
that grapes would grow like this. Please show me more."
He climbed and sprawled awkwardly on to the great plank that reached
from tie to tie, seating himself astride with the consequence that his
trousers were dragged half way up his long, thin legs, revealing his
clumsily-made garden shoes. In his eagerness to show his visitor the
growing of his vines he heeded it not; but after snapping off a
luxuriant shoot, he was about to tie the residue to a stout wire, when a
cry of fear from Helen arrested him.
"Oh, Mr Rosebury, pray, pray get down!" she cried. "It is not safe.
I'm sure you'll fall!"
"It is quite safe," he said, mildly; and he looked down with a bland
smile at the anxious face below him.
"Oh, no," she cried; "it cannot be."
"I have tested it so many times," he said. "Pray do not be alarmed."
"But I am alarmed," she cried, looking up at him with an agitated air
that made him hasten to descend, going through a series of evolutions
that did not tend to set off his ungainly figure to advantage, and ended
in landing him at her feet minus the bottom button of his vest.
"Thank you," she cried. "I am afraid I am very timid, but I could not
bear to see you there."
"Then I must leave my vines for the present," he said, smiling.
"Oh, if you please," she cried; and then, as they left the vinery, she
relapsed into so staid and dignified a mood, that the Reverend Arthur
felt troubled and as if he had been guilty of some grave want of
courtesy to his sister's guest, a state of inquietude that was ended by
the coming of Miss Rosebury and Grey.