And with the warmth of an inventor his Reverence read over his list and
grew more in love with his colour scheme than ever.
"Yes," said the Young Man, at intervals, "yes, that fills in grandly;"
and then he caught my eye, a flash of indignation, so he began to
hesitate and hedge. "Only, you see, your Reverence, that for flowers,
that is, for bedding out, it seems you need--you have to think--" and
he looked at me but got no assistance. "Perhaps there might be too many
colours, mightn't there?" he wound up feebly.
"Too many colours! Why, my dear fellow, it isn't for a funeral! Do you
want all the flowers to wear black coats like you and me?"
"No, no, sir, only, you see in one bed--"
"Bless the man, of course they are in one bed! Why, where is the harm
in variety? Just look here--" and we went through the scheme again.
"Now, come; if you don't like this, what can you suggest better, eh?"
The Young Man looked so nonplussed and uncomfortable, and his Reverence
was falling deeper and deeper in love with his arrangement, I saw that
I must at once take the matter in hand or it would be too late.
"I know," I said suddenly. I did not know, at least, not what I would
do, only what I would not, which is sometimes a great help in the other
direction.
"Well, let us hear your idea," said his Reverence, with enforced
patience, looking fondly at his scheme.
"The antirrhinums are too small and the violas too few," I began.
"Well, that is not much of an idea!"
"No, but I am thinking--" and so I was, for a thought had come.
Then his Reverence laughed. "Ah, well, you _think_. In the meantime
I will leave you my list and go and see after old Griggs." He linked
his arm in the Young Man's and walked him off. He, looking penitently
back, found no forgiveness; I had no use for the penitence of cowards.
Then I began to expound to Jim the idea that had come like a flash!
like a revelation! until Jim said, "Get on, let's have the idea. I
don't personally think his Reverence's scheme at all bad, you know. I
just laid low because I saw what a stew you were in, but _personally_ I
like a bit of colour."
Then I explained to Jim what a delirium those beds would be, and Jim
would have left me too had I not said he should do all the measurements
for the beds as I wanted somebody with an eye! How queer men are, even
in embryo. They always hang together, and it is only flattery that can
overcome their prejudices.
Jim grew interested. The idea was to be all yellow. I had those
marguerites of Griggs's cuttings developed now into fair-sized plants
in spite of their neglected childhood, for I had seen to them since.
They should grow in the centre; then should come my marigolds, which
were very thriving, two kinds of them, the big, rather clumsy African,
but with handsome colouring, and the smaller, neater, darker French
variety, and we would finish with a good border of tagetes.
They were all bushy plants, all hardy, and would bloom steadily through
the summer and autumn.
A basket of scabious--lady's pincushions--arriving from the Master
while I was planting out were also worked into my scheme, and worked
in well. The dark round balls of reds, browns, blues, with tiny white
pin-points, did not disturb the yellow harmony. Eventually I was proud
of those beds.
When first planted they did look slightly new and stalky, but they
filled out daily. His Reverence only remarked, "Well, well, have it
your own way; I suppose it is æsthetic! But my idea was more cheerful."
Griggs frankly said "yeller" was never his fancy. "Now, them 'janiums,
that gives a bit o' colour."
And I quite forgave the Young Man his past for his present admiration
was unbounded. He had been quite unable to think, he explained.
So that great difficulty was settled.
* * * * *
Griggs's geraniums turned out one or two good dark reds among the
magenta hues, and these were put in the two old stumps that hitherto
had been given over to mere ramping nasturtiums, and my superior
seedlings of those useful flowers were encouraged to fall over the edge
and ramp downwards.
An old oil cask, cut in two, burnt out and painted green--Jim and
I and the Young Man enjoyed that artistic work very much--formed
two capacious tubs and were filled with more geraniums, the best
and pinkest, and they brightened up the shrubbery corner where the
daffodils had shone.
Stocks and other geraniums--even the mauvy-tinted ones looked quite
well away from all touch of red--with a border of lobelia, were
placed under the study window in a narrow bed running along the front
of the house, thus helping his Reverence to realise _his_ ideal.
Then by degrees we arranged all the contents of my nursery, some in
clumps, some in rows, down the herbaceous border, and others in the
front border, the border which had looked so dismal and unpromising
on that November day when I first took my garden in hand. There
had been a brushing up of old inhabitants--Michaelmas daisies and
chrysanthemums--but much was still left to be desired.
You cannot do everything in the first year. It is no use thinking you
can.
* * * * *
One day, at the very beginning of June, I visited the potting-shed,
our one and only shed, which held a collection such as may be imagined
after the reign of Griggs for twenty years. In a dark corner I came
across some queer-looking roots sprouting away in a most astoundingly
lively fashion.
"Griggs, what on earth are these?" I called to that worthy.
"Them? Oh! them's daylers. Just stuck 'em there to keep dry for the
winter. They oughter be out by now, they oughter."
"Oh! I should think so," and then I marvelled on the nature of dahlias.
"Is this a good place for them during the winter? Don't they want
anything to eat or drink?"
"Bless yer! no, they takes their fill in the summer, but they oughter
be out by now; some'ow I've come to overlook them."
That these dahlias forgave the overlooking has always been a wonder to
me; perhaps they did not do so entirely. I believe more firmly than
ever in the thoroughness of the edict which rules "that what a man
soweth that shall he reap."
A child or a flower starved in infancy does not recover for some time,
if ever, and though my dahlias kindly bloomed and did their best, once
started in as good a bed as we could give them, they ought to have
been "potted up" in the beginning of May and kept from frosty nights;
then at the end of May or beginning of June they should have been
placed in their flowering position. So soon as frost touches them they
droop, as we all well know, in their own peculiar, utterly dejected
and forlorn manner. Then cut them down, dig them up, let them dry, and
place them for the winter in a dry and protected cellar or outhouse,
there to sleep until the spring calls them to fresh life.
* * * * *
I watched the long herbaceous border with an anxious eye. The
poppies--those dazzling papaver--opened their large green pods and
shook out blazing red and rather crinkly leaves in the sunshine. They
made one hot, but happy, to look at them. For that first year in my
garden I think they did their duty well, but bigger clumps will look
better. Some little spiky leaves that I had not recognised--how
should I when no label accompanied them?--turned out to be the Iceland
variety. They had one or two dainty blooms made of yellow butterflies'
wings, but oh, dear! one or two! I needed a mass. The delphiniums
looked healthy and promised a spiky bloom or two; the lupins were
already in flower, nice, quite nice, when one has not much else, but
the blue is too near purple. I must get some other varieties; the
white would be prettier. The big thick leaves of the hollyhocks grew
well at first, and then some beast of sorts began to fancy them and
they developed a moth-eaten appearance. All Griggs could say was, "You
never could do nothing with 'olly'ocks in this gardin, you couldn't."
My other wiseacre, old Lovell, said, "They liked a bit o' wind through
'em." His own seemed to flourish, so mine must be moved from the
sheltering hedge where I had thought they would show up.
Everywhere still grew and flourished the ever-present weeds. They
needed no watering, nothing to promote their vitality, they grew apace;
and I could mention other varieties beside that champion grower, the
ground-elder. There is a sticky, burry kind of rapid, straggling growth
with tenacious hot-feeling leaves. Its hold on the earth is not strong,
but it is brittle, and eludes its death-warrant that way; also a kind
of elongated dandelion, that looks straight at you as though it had a
right to be there. Then the common poppy, last year's nasturtium seeds,
and the offspring of last year's sunflowers are as bad as weeds, and
indeed the latter gave me as much trouble. The strong tuberous roots
required a vigorous pull, and were growing everywhere, through the
centre of every flower; I took at least a dozen out of one clump of
golden rod, and vowed I would have every sunflower up before it had
a chance of seeding. Of course all such things must come up or they
exhaust the feeding capacity of the border.
It is all very fine to say "_must_," but I believe a poor soil is
composed of weed seeds.
I walked down the garden with one of the Others, one who loved flowers,
only in her own way. She arranged them beautifully when everything
was put ready to her hand; she loved picking one here and there and
sticking it in her waist-band, or playing with its soft petals against
her cheek, then, its brief duty done, it was forgotten.
I have seen people--even mothers--love children in the same way; but
flowers and children need a broader love than that.
We walked down armed with scissors and with an empty basket; I had said
that there _were_ flowers.
"My dear girl, what on earth _have_ you? when all is said and done.
You show me a green bush thing and give it a name"--I had mentioned
delphinium--"and it does sound aggressively knowledgeable, of course!
And then another isolated and flowerless specimen and give _it_ a name.
But wherewithal am I to do the dinner-table to-night? Will you tell me
that?"
"You have a most lovely bunch of poppies in the drawing-room, and I
cut the copper-beech, which was wicked of me. Very soon you shall have
roses and sweet-peas and all these seedlings; and next year you shall
have sweet-Williams and cup and saucer Canterbury bells and foxgloves
and--"
"_Next_ year! my dear. I am wanting some flowers for _to-night_."
"To-night! Oh, dear, let me think. Why won't the things make haste? You
must have _something_, of course."
What was there? A good many things in bud, but had they been out I
could not have cut them. Just the one first specimen! To cut from
a plant you need such a big show, and all the tall perennials were
no good anyway for the table decoration. The blue cornflowers were
coming; the godetias held promising buds of pinkiness; the Shirley
poppies, too, and the sweet-peas; but for to-night! Everything was for
to-morrow. Down the garden we walked, hope always deferred, and beyond
the garden shone a field of brilliantly deep red. I caught my breath.
"Isn't it lovely? It is old Mason's saint-foin; let us take some. And
see, there are white daisies in the hay there, mine aren't out yet. And
with grasses, those lovely, wavy grasses! don't you think that will
do?"
The table did look lovely, but small thanks to my garden, I felt;
though the Other One cared not for that, and comforted me by saying
that gardening had certainly developed my resources if not the flowers.
Nature's garden is at its best in June.
The wild rose and honeysuckle scent the hedges, the tall white daisies
shine in the grass, the ruddy chickweed, with the setting sun behind,
glows like the evening clouds; and the tall, dainty, white meadow-sweet
offers itself to one's hand. Were it a garden flower we should prize it
almost as we do gypsophila. But Nature does not mean her favourites to
be promoted to the drawing-room. Their rustic beauty fades at once, and
it seems truly unkind to cut so short their joyous sunny day.
* * * * *
The dinner-table that had caused me so much anxiety was specially
needed for an American friend of one of the Others. She greeted the
pretty effect with, "My! how cunning! Do all these pretty things grow
in your garden, Mistress Mary?"
"In mine and Nature's," I added.
"You have a little rhyme about Mary and her garden, haven't you? And
her lamb, too. Have you a lamb?"
"Oh, yes," said one of the Others, "she has a lamb, the new version of
that rhyme, too, 'with coat as black as soot.'"
But what she meant, or why I grew hot, it passes my wisdom to say.
"Say now, do you grow nightingales in your garden, Mistress Mary?
I assure you, sir," turning to his Reverence, "I have never yet
compassed an introduction to that much-vaunted British institooshon,
the nightingale. I am just crazy till I hear those liquid tones, the
jug jug and jar jar: such vurry ugly equivalents they sound to me for
thrilling notes, but the best, I conclude, our poor speech can do in
imitation of that divine melody."
When our friend had quite finished--I noticed she landed herself
without fear in the longest of sentences, and brought them always with
much aplomb to the neatest of conclusions, an accomplishment in which
she must find the majority of her English cousins sadly deficient--his
Reverence promised her the wished-for concert; and he further dilated
on the beauties represented by jug jug and jar jar, until she assured
him that with him for her guide she would face that dark and lonely
walk of Mistress Mary's--she meant my lime trees--where doubtless she
would find a blue or white lady flitting past, with a sigh, wasn't it?
for some recalcitrant lover.
However, I noticed she walked off later with the Young Man, who dropped
in after dinner, and she asked him all about the jug jug and jar jar
with ever-increasing animation.
It certainly was very cool that night, as it can be in June even
after a hot day. We looked round to send Jim for shawls, but Jim had
vanished, to his work, no doubt. We strolled down the lime walk to see
if the nightingales would oblige us, which I doubted, as nightingales
are as careful of their throats in a cool wind as are prima donnas.
"You really mustn't talk," I heard the Young Man say.
"Land's sake! but do they want it all their own way? Though who could
talk when the whole night is throbbing with beauty? Just look at that
intense blue vault above us, and the calm stars shimmering down on us.
Say! doesn't it make you feel just too awfully small for anything? You
don't feel inclined to get up and preach now, do you? Just shut your
eyes and listen; that's about all one can do."
The figures wandered up and down under the overhanging lime boughs, two
and two, and presently the black and white ones ahead of us stopped.
When we wandered off again somehow we had changed partners, and Mamie
was arm-in-arm with her special Other One and the Young Man was walking
with me.
"I had such a lot I wanted to talk to you about," he began. This
sounded interesting, but he seemed unable to get further.
"About the Sunday school?" I asked gently, for we were still listening
for the nightingale.
It was almost a cross "No" that he muttered as we passed Mamie and her
friend.
"Oh, I know," I suggested; "it is about the garden. You haven't been
helping me in my garden for weeks and weeks. What can one talk of
better than a garden? I think it is the most interesting subject, and
you must want to know how the nurslings are turning out, now they are
started in real life."
I suppose Mamie had caught the word garden, for she began to sing in a
very high thread-of-silver voice,
"If love's gardener sweet were I,
I would cull the stars for thy pleasure."
"Say, tall and reverend sir, can you reach a star? Look how they
twinkle!"
The Young Man is so very English I half feared he would not understand
how to take her, but Mamie's freedom was infectious.
"All the stars are not up there," he said, "fortunately for my arms.
They are twinkling under these trees to-night."
"Why, you _are_ poetical! But these lively stars of white and blue
are not the kind to cull, are they, Mistress Mary? Land's sake! but
they might prove as big an undertaking as one of those fiery worlds
twinkling up there. 'How I wonder what you are!' Why, _we_ don't
wonder, we _know_. I learnt all about them at school. But who knows
what _I_ am composed of?"
"'Ribbons and laces and sweet pretty faces!' is what they taught me at
_my_ school," said the Young Man, calmly.
"Really, the nightingale _can't_ sing if we all talk so much. Do let us
try and be quiet for two minutes," I said.
But Mamie was walking away laughing, and saying the nightingale would
soon get used to her dulcet tones, and the Young Man stayed listening
with me.
"And yet it's true," he said, "what she says; how is one ever to know
about another person, particularly when that other person always turns
the conversation when one begins to talk about--"
"You are getting mixed," I interrupted. "Don't you like talking about
my garden?"
"Not always."
"Well, then, there's the parish."
"You only do that to annoy."
"I don't! But to please you I will talk of your last sermon."
The Young Man was very hard to please; he said he preferred to know the
exact ingredients of the stars, so I stopped Mamie to ask her, but she
said we were becoming prosaic; the stars were really little holes in
heaven's floor that the angels made to peep through. "That's what they
taught at your school, didn't they, Reverend Young Man?"
"They did. My education has greatly helped me to retain my fond
delusions and pet prejudices."
"Why, what an ideal education for a clergyman!"
"Since young ladies are taught to weigh the stars and won't listen for
nightingales, it does seem good to me."
"Now, don't you get rattled. Mistress Mary, you have been rubbing him
up the wrong way, and, mercy me! however can a poor Yank hear your
nightingale? That is a delusion I must part with unless he condescends
to commence soon."
"Well, wait, do wait quietly for one minute."
So for a brief pause there was silence; and the stir of the leaves
and little rustle of unseen creeping things could be heard, and then,
yes, there it was! We all raised a warning finger, but the throbbing
note broke through the stillness; a little gurgle, a break, and then a
longer effort.
"Oh, my! Is that it? It makes me creep all over. Oh, don't let us talk.
Will it go on?"
Yes, it went on. After some tentative "jugs" and "jars" it broke into
a full-throated throb, and even our fair visitor's exclamation did not
scare it.
"It _is_ singing to-night," said One; "really, it must be in honour of
you, Mamie. It seldom sings with such vigour!"
In the centre of the sloping field grew a fine clump of trees, birch,
chestnut and one or two straight pines; the nightingale had chosen this
for his stage, and now again quite distinctly rose the gurgling note,
and continued, too, right through Miss Mamie's piercing whisper.
"Why! it's purfectly lovely! I guess I must take one or two back to
Amurica. This grove of trees, the dense blue sky, the silence of all
you dear people, and just that one divine voice throbbing with love! It
makes me feel like melting. If anyone proposed to me now I should just
have no strength to refuse. Don't feel nervous, most Reverend Young
Man. I am really thinking of that fascinating Mr Jim. Say! has he gone
to bed?"
Jim! Where was he? I saw the Young Man give a start, and a quick glance
showed me we had both solved the mystery of that persistently gurgling
bird. "He ought to be doing his preparation," I said in firm tones.
"Don't, Mary! how you shouted. Now he has stopped. Oh, what a pity!"
The Young Man whistled softly, and after a pause a little answering
whistle came from another spot.
"What is that?" asked Mamie.
"Night-jar," suggested the Young Man.
We listened in vain for more warblings from the nightingale. He had
flown for good, and they all said it was my fault.
"Did you have a good concert?" asked his Reverence, as we returned to
the drawing-room.
And at the chorus of approval he laughed, and assured us the
nightingale had given him a dress rehearsal, and that was why we waited
so long.
Mamie declared his Reverence was the biggest dear she had met "this
side," for you never could believe a word he said. He and the Young Man
had both been to the same school, she reckoned.
Next morning she had a tale to tell of her own special nightingale
throbbing with love just below her window, and again in the early
morning hours at her door. When she laid great stress on the "throbbing
with love," Jim got bashfully red. Then she maintained she heard him
flutter downstairs just as she was going to pipe her love tale too, and
that always, always, she will love her English nightingale the best of
all British institooshons.
"You don't think she really knows," whispered Jim to me, "because if
she does, she is going rather far, isn't she?"
* * * * *
How lovely a garden can be by moonlight, even a poor little garden.
The moon is merciful, she touches all things, even the weeds, with a
soft mystery; hallows the lily and every white bloom; in her light
the red and blue flowers are not faded or extinguished, but softened;
distances, shadows are intenser, more suggestive than in the garish
glory of the sun; soft voices, soft footsteps are needed for the
moonlit garden, and one may not think of work or gardeners. The flowers
are asleep, wake them not; all but those of strong sweet scent and
small blossom, like the jessamine and nicotina, which fittingly star
the night garden, and these are sweeter now than ever, and thus woo to
them the little moths, those flitting, dusky, silent lovers.
The lime-tree avenue became a favourite night walk. The path that was
once gravel, and by long neglect had become green in patches, was
encouraged in its overgrowth, and Griggs and a scythe will turn it in
time to quite a respectable grass walk, I hope. In the subdued light
the feathery tall weeds gave it quite a fairy glade appearance.
I can dream in my garden by moonlight, and perhaps not always of my
garden.
* * * * *
The little perennial and biennial seeds sown in the open in April were,
at the end of June, ready for thinning. They had each developed the
"body" prepared for them, and nice, sturdy little "bodies" they were,
but growing too close together and needing more elbow room. I do not
think one ever sows seeds thinly enough, and this is not so much to
be regretted for economy's sake as for the sake of the tiny plants'
nourishment. Here again was a great waste of plant life, though, had
all been wanted, all could have been used, for they are none the worse
for this shifting. Still, half a row instead of two would have been
sufficient for my needs.
I selected the sturdiest, left some growing where they were, at about
six inches apart, and moved the others to a new bed, also allowing
them six inches; the rest were wasted, except a few, which found their
way to a corner of some cottage gardens. But this is not the time when
people are grateful for them; they like the well-grown plants in the
autumn, which can then be placed in their spring bed.
If the weather has been very dry it is a good plan to water the plants
well before beginning to divide them, which, of course, is done by
loosening the ground with a little fork and carefully selecting the
young root you want from the many. Water well, too, when your work is
finished, and continue to watch over them unless the rain comes to
bless them.
For these plantlets I chose a nursery that was not exposed all day to
the sun. One has to think for them; they repay it with quicker and
sturdier growth, which means better flowering capacity in the spring.
So all my wallflowers, forget-me-nots, Canterbury-bells,
sweet-Williams, silene, were thus attended to, and, added to my nursery
division of perennial seeds, which I now divided up in like fashion,
made a grand show, or promise rather.
His Reverence was brought to admire, but he looked at the patch I had
chosen and said,
"Do you know I had cauliflowers in here last year, and it is just the
very spot that suits them."
"I know," I said. "I hope it will suit my children too."
But his Reverence took quite another view of the matter, and talked of
"landmarks," so I fled, for I did not want to be told I must move them
all again. That was impossible.
* * * * *