The Hyacinths are all out in the Dutch Garden. But alas, the winds of
March!—they grew and gathered and became a gale and laid some twenty of
our silver-blue soldiers prostrate. Their fat juicy stalks snap all too
easily. In the pots on the terrace wall, half have been swept away.
However, thanks to our close planting, only the eye of the initiate
could perceive the gaps. Right under the study windows there are still
twin lakes of exquisite pale sapphire, breathing fragrance.
[Illustration: outside in garden]
In the bank below the Dutch Garden, the Narcissus, which have been set
to the tune of two thousand, are swaying long lemon-coloured buds out of
a field of green spikes. There are, in that tongue of land, two Buddleia
trees which have grown to unusual height and girth and are a mass of
orange balls in due season. And there is a band of Iris to which we are
perpetually adding, but which, mysteriously, never seems to increase.
There is also a shrubby bit where you will behold a wild rose tree; two
nondescript flowering evergreens; a darling little Scotch Briar, one
mass of yellow Pompons, entrancing by their wild scent; those
disappointing bushes known as Altheas, so eulogized by garden
chroniclers; and a Rheum.
We planted the Rheum last year. This March it astonishes us by the leaf
buds it has produced. They are like stormy, sinister, crimson blossoms
with gaping yellow mouths, and look poisonous and tropical: altogether
out of place in a Surrey moorland—especially with the innocence of the
grey Lavender plant that grows beside them. What a thrilling thing a
garden is and how full of surprises!—do Rheums always do this, we
wonder?
* * * * *
[Sidenote: CARPETS OF BLUE]
[Illustration: flower pot]
All the Compton pots along the terrace are filled with blue Hyacinths
and Forget-me-nots; all the beds about the house are stuffed with Tulips
and again Forget-me-nots. Now, some people ‹we read in a garden-book the
other day› eschew this plant, _Myosotis silvestris_, because “it spreads
so rapidly that it may almost be regarded as a weed.” We are the kind of
people who like our flowers to spread like weeds; especially when, as in
the case of this attractive sinner, every bed becomes a delicate cloud
of blue from which on long stems the Darwins rear their cups of
wonderful colour.
[Illustration: small flower]
A little later on, we mean to make the same use of Nemophila, which last
year, in spite of ceaseless rain, kept bravely blue in the patch where
it had been sown until quite the end of autumn.
Every one tells us that Madonna Lilies will not succeed in our soil. We
are making another effort with giant bulbs, which, so far, promise
splendidly.
[Illustration: flower]
Fate, in its unexpected way, has provided us with a double row of red
Duc van Thol Tulips on each side of the two little rose beds that run
down the grass slope under the bench yclept “_Schöne Aussicht_.” That
particular slope, by the way, in the pristine days of jungle, was the
worst bit of wilderness. Heather, Gorse, Bramble, Bracken and underwood
made it simply impenetrable. Now, cleared and turfed, it leads the eye
gently on to the Pine Tree Avenue; to the green of the fields beyond; to
the valley and the distant hills. In a triangular bed at the top a clump
of Lilac has been planted and carpeted beneath with “Bachelor’s
Buttons.” Already it is very gay, although the Lilacs are only in bud.
We believe these double Daisies go by another title in gardening
circles, but this is a name associated with youthful memories. They
ought to flourish the whole year round, since bachelors will always be
in season. We shall see.
* * * * *
There is nothing that gives one a more intimate sense of the joy of
spring than the renewed song of the birds. It is good to wake at early
dawn and hear the soft sleepy calls and cries with which they first
rouse each other, then the exquisite voice of thrush or blackbird,
singing as it were under its breath the morning hymn which is one of the
most touching things in Nature.
Just now a small bird was spinning out a monody as delicate and
continuous and attenuated as a spider’s gossamer—some feathered mother,
we fancy, cradling her eggs. We never heard any song quite like it
before. Adam shakes his head and says we are bringing the birds about
the house with our winter largesses; but one might as well be told that
if you want to keep your house tidy you should banish the children!
Says Victor Hugo:
“_Préservez moi, Seigneur, préservez ceux que j’aime,
Frères, parents, amis, et mes ennemis mêmes,
Dans le mal triomphants,
De jamais voir, Seigneur, la ruche sans abeilles
La printemps sans oiseau, l’été sans fleurs vermeilles ...
La maison sans enfants!_”
Substitute “_jardin_” for “_printemps_” and you have our views. We have
no children in this house, worse luck ... except the fur ones.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: CONCERNING CALIBAN]
Caliban, the garden man, has again broken his “pledge,” a little quicker
than usual this time, and we fear we must be firm and keep to our last
ultimatum—that unless he takes it afresh he will have to go. Caliban
always reminds us of a prehistoric man. Whenever one meets him he looks
exactly as if he had just reared himself upright from running on all
fours, and would drop down again immediately as soon as we are out of
sight. He has an excellent hard-working wife, and works very well
himself—until the last pledge has quite worn away. We are sorry for Mrs.
Caliban, the mother of three prehistoric babies: for we hear that
Caliban, in the philosophic language of the district, “knocks her about
a bit,” when he has had what he calls “his glass of beer.”—“You couldn’t
wish for a nicer husband, when he’s sober,” she vows, poor woman, and is
pathetically hopeful every time the oath of abstinence is administered!
It is dreadful how many bad husbands there are in this small district.
In another family the father is so well known that the mere mention of
his name is enough to stiffen the employer of labour.
“_Dere Miss, my husband as been very unlucky and strained
hisself again and ad to give up his work._”
Thus the poor wife starts the usual appeal when the inevitable has
occurred and there is no more bread in the house. We are quite
accustomed to these missives, which indeed might be stereotyped with
space left for the date. Although the brother of a local policeman, this
black sheep is altogether so hopeless, that, in order to keep his poor
little progeny from growing sable in their turn, we have placed a lamb
out here and there in divers charitable folds. Alfie, the last rescued,
is a more original letter-writer than his mother. This was the document
that he sent her from that happy Home for Little Boys where we trust he
will grow up with an unimpeachable fleece.
“_Dere Mother,—I hope this finds you well. I hope James and
Vilet and Alice are well and nice and good. This is a very nice
place. I hope you will tell me when you are going to call that I
may be in. God bless you._
_“Yours trewly_,
“_ALFRED_.”
In yet another family, the head of which was in the habit of spending
ten or twelve shillings a week regularly on cigarettes and tipple, until
Nemesis overtook him in the shape of consumption, the pretty,
hard-working, fiery-haired Irish wife declares without a thought of
unkindness, that if she could only get him “out of the way for good” she
could “do all right” for herself and her three small children.
[Sidenote: THE VILLAGE CURSE]
If ever woman has a voice in social reform, though with a few glaring
exceptions legal interference with the liberty of the subject is
abhorrent to Loki’s Grandmother, and she has little wish herself for
suffrage or any other rage, she vows that she will vote and vote and
vote for any measure that may tend to eliminate the Public House from
the countryside—curse of the small home that it is! In every one of
these cases there would be comfort and happiness in the family were it
not for the perpetual temptation to the breadwinner.
The blacker the sheep, sad to say, the larger as a rule the family of
doubtfully hued lambs. Mrs. Mutton—the letter-writer—is “not so well
just now.” She is pathetically anxious that the new babe may be born
alive, having lost the last one. Loki’s Ma-Ma went to see her the other
day, and found her with a knowledgeable neighbour who has promised to
“see her through,” and in a state of profound gloom, not unmixed,
however, with a faint, pleasurable importance.
“Oh, Miss, we have just heard of such a sad thing in the village. The
nurse, she’s just been up to tell me—a pore young woman, Miss, gone with
her first!”
“Oh, dear!”—Loki’s Mother is duly impressed, but anxious to distract
Mrs. Mutton’s mind—“That is very sad. I hope you’re feeling pretty well
to-day, Mrs. Mutton?”
“No, Miss, I’m very poorly these days. Mrs. Tosher here says she’s never
seen any one like me. ‘What can it be,’ she says, ‘that makes you like
this?’ Don’t you, Mrs. Tosher?”
“Yes, my dear.”
“I fell agin the water-butt this morning,” goes on Mrs. Mutton, in the
melancholy drone that is habitual to her. “A kind of weakness it was
come over me. I hit my eye—something awful, Miss, as you can see!”
The signorina had been tactfully averting her gaze from that black orb;
she now blesses the superior tact which enables her to contemplate it
calmly.
Mrs. Tosher—a large, jovial, untidy female with a shrunken “blue cotton”
inadequately fastened by two safety pins across her capacious
bosom—gives a heavy but non-committal groan. Mr. Mutton’s name is not
mentioned. The water-butt explanation is accepted without demur.
“Of course, she’s ’ad a shock to-day, Miss, you see,” says the village
matron, and brings the conversation back to the original topic, which is
one of great attraction.
“Yes, Miss, it ’aving been just as it might be me, Miss.” Mrs. Mutton
sighs, and looks in a detached, if one-sided manner, out of the grimy
window. The visitor perceives there is nothing for it: she must hear the
details. Wisely she resigns herself.
“What happened?”
“Well, it was all along of two suet dumplings and some chops, Miss,
which wasn’t as they ought to have been, having been kept in the ’ouse
too long, you see. Wasn’t that it, Mrs. Tosher, my dear?”
“Yes, my dear, and some ’ard bits of parsnip.”
“But it was mostly the chops, Miss, they’d been kept, you see. The
doctors, they couldn’t do nothing for her.” Mrs. Mutton sighs and lifts
the fringe of her shawl to the damaged eye. Tragic as the tale is,
Loki’s Mother visibly brightens:
“But then the poor thing was poisoned,” she cries cheerfully.
“Yes, Miss, potomaine poison along of her condition, being the same as
mine, Miss.”
“But, Mrs. Mutton, anyone—”
“No, Miss.” Mrs. Tosher intervenes: she cannot allow this foolish
attempt at consolation to proceed. “The doctor said it was along of her
condition.”
“Yes, Miss, it’s the condition as done it—all along of a bit of
chop—kept like—and ’ard parsnips.”
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