I am not one of those who believe in going down to the country to look at
this Spring of which there is so much talk. Wanting in business
organisation and coherent effort, Spring in the country is a poor affair at
the best; there may be half-a-dozen daffodils in flower in one spinney, but
you have to tramp over two or three muddy fields after that to find a
button-hole of primroses, and so onwards over a stile and a ditch to the
place where the blackthorn has blossomed and the green woodpecker is
pecking the greenwood tree.
And very likely there are gates. Judging from statements in novels you
might suppose a gate to be a bright and simple piece of mechanism, swung on
by rosy-cheeked children and easily opened by Lord Hugo with his riding-crop
so that Lady Hermione may jog through it on her practically priceless
bay. That is quite wrong. It rests on the primary fallacy that gates are
meant to be opened, whereas they are really meant to be kept shut. What
actually happens when you want to open one is that you plunge halfway
through a deep quagmire, climb on to a slippery stone, wrestle with a piece
of hoop-iron, some barbed wire and some pieces of furze, lift the gate up
by the bottom bar and wade through the rest of the quagmire carrying it on
your shoulder.
If you are riding like Lord Hugo you hook the fastening of the gate with
the handle of your crop and make your horse shunt slowly backwards by
applying the reverse clutch with your feet. As the gate refuses to give,
you are, of course, drawn gently over the animal's head until you tumble
into the bog like a man whose punt-pole is stuck in the bottom of the
stream.
That is why I like going down to Kew, where the Spring is tidy and
concentrated, and there is a squared map, just like France, at the
turnstile gate to direct you to the magnolia dump, and little notices
pointing you to the Temperate Houses, though this is really unnecessary,
because there are no licensed premises in the Gardens at Kew. All is quiet
and calm. You are not even compelled to leave the gravel-walks and tread on
the damp grass, unless you have a desire to go to the river's edge and see
how stiffly the tail of the Duke of NORTHUMBERLAND'S stone lion sticks out
on the further bank between the two peel towers from which his crossbowmen
contemplate the Surrey marshes.
I used to know a man who had mugged up all the trees and plants, so that
when you said to him, "What a funny juniper that is over there, with blue
peach-blossoms on it," he would reply, "You mean the _Pyrofoliata persica
corylus_," and explain how it was first introduced into England by JEREMY
TAYLOR in 1658. Then when you went up to look at the placard on the tree
you not only found that he was perfectly right, but obtained the additional
information that the wood was of a particularly hard and durable nature,
and only used for making the heads of croquet mallets and the seats on the
tops of motor omnibuses.
I like this plan of putting placards upon trees, and I think it might well
be carried out in the country too. There would be none of that standing
about in the wet then, and arguing whether the thing is a beech or an oak,
when all the time it is a horse-chestnut and laughing up its bark at you.
One must not forget either at Kew the great conservatories, though I do not
care for these so much because there are men in them watching to see that
you do not pick the cactuses or the palms to put in your button-hole; nor
the magnificent Pagoda, which accommodates the Observator, who watches for
the flowers to come out, and the Curator, who writes appreciative little
notices to stick on the beds; nor the piebald swans in the artificial lake.
But the great glory of Kew is the Pump-room. It is surrounded by
marble-topped tables and green seats, and I am aware that it is not called
a Pump-room, though a noise proceeds from inside it very like the panting
of a pump. They tell me that this is an hydraulic machine for washing up the
cups and plates; but I do not believe them, because so many people who take
tea round the Pump-room drink left-handed, as if the reverse side of the
cup had belonged to somebody else.
Anyhow it is a very jolly and democratic assemblage that sits and drinks
tea under the trees and eats cakes that have no placard on them to say at
what date they were introduced into England. Here you may see the
prosperous docker with his wife and family sitting quite unostentatiously
at the next table to the needy scientist who has come to make notes about
the purple narcissi. And a little further on is the novelist who is getting
local colour for his great rustic love-scene which he is going to say took
place in the heart of Devonshire.
But it was not for the purpose of providing you with tea and cakes that the
Pump-room was founded. Just as you may read in your morning paper that the
Honourable Miss Muffet has proceeded to Harrogate to take the waters, so it
is with Kew. One goes to Kew to take the watercresses. I have found out by
exhaustive inquiries from one of the waitresses that, though you may
substitute rolls and butter for bread and margarine, and may have marmalade
with either or both, and though it is optional to eat even the cakes with
yellow sugar upon them, there is no way of evading the watercresses. There
is a strong feeling amongst the waitresses that it is just these compulsory
watercresses which have made us Englishmen what we are. The whole vast
pleasure-ground really centres round them, and the reason why Londoners
flock (as the papers say) to Kew is that they are hungry for the medicinal
virtues of this aquaceous plant.
After you have taken the watercresses you are allowed to wander about the
Gardens again and look at QUEEN VICTORIA'S cottage, round which there is
always an eager and admiring crowd examining it from every point of view
and wondering what premium they would have to pay for it if it were on the
market now. And then you will want to go home and be unable to find the
gate; but after a little time the Observator will observe you with his
telescope from the top of the Pagoda and mention it to the Curator, who
will direct a bronzed and amiable man in a blue uniform to lead you to the
turnstile.
I am told that there are some people who do not care to sample their Spring
at Kew or in the country either, but prefer to go to San Remo or spend
Saturday afternoon toiling in their own back-garden. Let them mind their
peas, I say, while I go down to Kew.