When Peggy had been staying a week at the vicarage, her parents came
down from town on a two days' visit, especially arranged to give them an
opportunity of looking over Yew Hedge. Colonel Saville's scant supply
of patience was fast giving out beneath the strain of disappointment,
and he declared his intention of buying the first habitable house he
saw, while his wife and daughter were reluctantly forced to the
conclusion that it was impossible to procure an ancestral estate at the
price of a suburban villa. Yew Hedge, therefore, appeared the refuge of
the destitute, and a fly being hired from the village inn, and Mrs
Asplin invited to take the fourth seat, the little party drove off to
inspect the house in mingled hope and fear.
The thick hedge which gave the name to the house skirted the country
road for some hundreds of yards, while a carriage drive of commonplace
propriety led up to a square stone house, which could by no possibility
have been termed either beautiful or picturesque. Mrs Saville's face
fell into an expression of martyr-like despair, and the colonel looked
fierce and frowning; but, like many good things, and people also, Yew
Hedge showed its worst points on the surface, and modestly hid its
Virtues out of sight. There was a large flower and vegetable garden
behind the house, the entrance hall was roomy with an old-fashioned
fireplace in the corner, the drawing-room contained an abundance of
those nooks and corners beloved of modern decorators, and Peggy fairly
capered about with exultation when she entered the dining-room and
beheld panelled oak walls and a frescoed ceiling.
"Father, it's settled! We take this house on the spot. These walls
decide it. Think how inspiring it will be to live our lives against a
background of carved oak!" she cried in a rapture, and the colonel
tugged at his moustache with a smile of complacent satisfaction.
"Looks about right, Peg, doesn't it? That Indian furniture would look
well in here, and the old delf. We'll put all the delf here, I fancy,
and--"
"And have blue walls in the drawing-room--blue paper and white wood, and
a touch of yellow in the draperies. I saw some brocade at Liberty's
which would be the very thing!" chimed in his wife, while Mrs Asplin
gasped and looked askance at the extraordinary trio who began to discuss
the furnishings of a house before they had even ascended the staircase.
She coughed in a deprecatory manner, and said:
"The reception rooms are certainly fine--they have always been
considered the strong point of the house, but the bedroom accommodation
is not nearly so good. There are fewer rooms than you would expect, and
they are mostly small. I'm afraid you will be disappointed when you see
them."
"If there are three or four decent rooms, that is all we need. I want
my home for myself, and not for a crowd of visitors. One spare room, or
two at most, is all I would have furnished if there were a dozen empty.
Give me retirement and a quiet home life!" cried the colonel, whereat
his wife and daughter exchanged glances of amusement, for if ever there
lived a man who adored his fellow-creatures, and delighted in crowding
his house from floor to ceiling with unexpected guests, that man was
Colonel Saville, and would be until his death.
Mrs Asplin understood the meaning of that glance, and giving up the
colonel as a hopeless case, addressed herself instead to his wife.
"And I am afraid the pantry is poor, and the scullery also. Mrs Selby
used to complain of them and of the lack of conveniences. There are no
cupboards, and the--"
It was of no use. Mrs Saville was as intractable as her husband, and
refused to listen to any warning.
"Dear Mrs Asplin," she said sweetly, "I don't know anything about
cupboards. We never worried about these things in India; the servants
managed somehow, and I presume they can manage here. The entertaining
rooms are large enough to take in our furniture, and Peggy likes them.
Those are the great points which we have to consider. If there are
enough bedrooms to take us in, I think we shall be satisfied."
This Saville trio was the most impracticable party of house-hunters whom
the vicar's wife had ever known, and she wondered no longer at the
difficulty they had experienced in finding a house to their taste, when
she noted the spirit in which they surveyed the present premises. A
convenience was not a convenience at all if it interfered with a fad or
fancy, and a serious drawback was hailed with delight if it appeared in
quaint or unexpected fashion. As a matter of fact, the purchase of the
house had been a foregone conclusion, since the moment when Peggy had
beheld the oak walls of the dining-room, and within twenty-four hours
from that moment it was a concluded fact.
Ah, then and there was hurrying to and fro, and endless journeys up to
town, and interviews with obstinate decorators, who would insist on
obtruding their own ideas, and battles waged with British workmen, who
could not understand why one shade of a colour was not as good as
another, or wherein lay the deadly necessity that they should match.
Peggy put a penny in the slot and weighed herself on the machine at the
station every second or third day, to verify her statement that she was
wasting to a shadow beneath the nervous strain. She was left at the
vicarage in order to superintend the workmen, while Colonel and Mrs
Saville stayed in town to interview furniture dealers and upholsterers;
and every morning she walked over to Yew Hedge and made a procession
round the rooms, to note what progress had been made since the day
before. Half-a-dozen men were at work, or, to be strictly accurate,
were _engaged_ to work, at the house; but beyond the fact that it grew
steadily dirtier and dirtier, and that the splashes of whitewash and
shavings of paper stretched further and further down the drive, it was
difficult to see what progress was being made.
Then Peggy made a desperate resolve, begged a bundle of sandwiches from
the old cook, packed it with sundry other properties in a basket, and
announced her intention of spending the day at Yew Hedge, and keeping
the men up to their work by the influence of her presence. Mrs Asplin
laughed at the idea of their being awed by anything so small and dainty,
but small as she was Miss Peggy had contrived to instil a very wholesome
awe of herself among the workmen. She never expressed open disapproval,
and was invariably courteous in manner, but there was a sting in her
stately speeches which made them wince, though they would have found it
difficult to explain the reason of their discomfiture. On the present
occasion the usual group of idlers was discovered lazing in the hall
when the little white figure appeared suddenly among them. They flushed
and slouched away, but the young lady was all smiles and amiability.
"Good-morning!" she cried. "I have brought my tools with me to-day, for
I am going to stay and garden. If you can spare the time, I shall be
much obliged if you will boil some water for me later on, but it will do
when you make your own tea. Don't let me interrupt your work! I shall
be in the garden, if you want to consult me at any time, so we shall all
be busy together!"
The abashed faces stared at her in a solid wall of discomfiture, and
Peggy retreated hastily, and paused behind a harberry fence to have her
laugh out, before repairing to the shed where the gardening tools were
stored. Then she unrolled an apron, tied it over her skirt, rolled up
her sleeves to protect the starched little cuffs, took a rake in one
hand and a hoe in the other, and surveyed the prospect. With ambition
untempered by ignorance, she had openly avowed her intention of
possessing the finest flowers in the county, and giving an object-lesson
in gardening to ignorant professors of the art, so that it was more than
time to begin preparation.
"The finest garden in the county!" Even allowing for the prejudices of
possession, it was impossible to bestow such a title upon Yew Hedge in
its present unkempt condition. The house had been unlet for two years,
during which time the grass had grown coarse and rank, wallflowers and
forget-me-nots were dying a lingering death in the borders, and nothing
was coming on to take their place. It was not the first time that Peggy
had given her mind to this subject, but so far she had not succeeded in
finding a solution of the difficulty, nor had the suggestion of the
village gardener met with her approval.
"It's bedding-out as you want," he had explained. "You must bed out.
That's the tastiest thing for those 'ere round beds, and the tidiest
too. They last well on into the autumn, if it comes in no sharp frosts.
There's nothing like them for lasting!"
"Like _what_? Do you mean geraniums?"
"Ay, geraniums for sure, and calcies, and lobelias, and a nice little
hedge of pyrethrum. Can't do better than that, can yer? Geraniums in
the centre,"--he drew a circle on the ground with the end of his stick,
and prodded little holes here and there to illustrate his plan. "A nice
patch of red, then comes yellar, then the blue, then the green. In
circles or in rows, according as you please."
"I seem to have seen it somewhere! I have certainly seen it," mused
Peggy solemnly, so solemnly, that the poor man took her words in good
faith, and looked at her with wondering pity.
"I should say you 'ad! You couldn't travel far without seein' of 'em in
the summer time. There's nuthin' else to see in a manner of speaking,
for they all 'as 'em. 'Igh and low, gentle and simple."
"Then I won't!" quoth Peggy unexpectedly. "Henceforth, Bevan, when
sightseers come to the neighbourhood, send them up to Yew Hedge to
inspect the one garden in England which does not go in for bedding-out!
If I want fireworks, I'll have them in gunpowder on the fifth of
November, but not in flowers if I know it! It's an insult to Nature to
rule a garden in lines and transform a bed into a mathematical figure!"
The old gardener looked at her more in sorrow than in anger, and shook
his head dejectedly as he went back to his work. He had the gravest
doubts about the sanity of a young lady who objected to "bedding-out;"
but if Peggy gained no approval from him for her new-fangled notions,
she reaped her reward in Rob's unaffected delight, when the conversation
was detailed for his benefit.
"Bravo, Mariquita!" he cried. "I recognise in you the instinct of the
true gardener--a rare thing, let me tell you, to find in a woman. Women
like show and colour, a big effect, rather than interesting detail, but
I'm thankful to find you are an exception. Come over to-morrow and see
_my_ garden! I keep a corner for myself at the end of the shrubbery,
and forbid any of the men to touch it, and I flatter myself I have some
treasures you won't find in any other garden in England. I brought them
home from my travels, and have coaxed them to grow by looking after them
myself and studying their little ways. They need a lot of care, and get
sulky if they are not humoured, but it's the whole interest of gardening
to master these little eccentricities."
"Just my sentiments!" cried Peggy; but when in due time Rob escorted her
to see his precious garden, her face was blank with disappointment. Two
straggling beds with a rockery filling up the corner, and scarcely a
gleam of colour from one end to another! That at least was the effect
from a distance, but as the proprietor pointed out his treasures,
insignificant little blossoms were distinguishable among the greenery,
and flowers the size of a threepenny piece were produced proudly from
lurking-places and exhibited for admiration. They all came from some
unheard-of spots at the other side of nowhere, had been reared with
prodigious difficulty, and were of such rarity and value that the heads
of public gardens had paid special pilgrimage to The Larches in order to
behold them. Peggy's eyebrows went up in a peak, and her face
lengthened, but it was no use, she could not be enthusiastic, could not
even affect an interest in the struggling little lives.
After exclaiming: "How strange!" "How odd!" and "Fancy that!" a dozen
times in succession, her very powers of exclamation seemed to depart,
and she was reduced to sighs and grunts of response. In the middle of
the history of a jungle plant which was the glory of the collection, Rob
suddenly lifted his head and put a startling question:
"Are you interested? Do you care to hear about it?"
Peggy looked at him and made a little sign of apology.
"Not--_much_, Rob! It's curious, of course, but very `niggly,' don't
you think? It makes no effect at all in the bed."
Rob rose from his knees, flicked the dust off his trousers, and cleared
his throat in that dry sepulchral manner which people adopt when they
long to say something sharp and cutting, but are too high-minded to
allow themselves to do so. Then he pushed his cap back from his head,
whistled three bars of a popular tune, and said politely:
"There are some pink peonies coming out in the drive. Better come along
and see them."
"Robert Darcy, I will--not--be--patronised!" cried Peggy, flashing
indignant eyes upon him from the altitude of his highest waistcoat
button. "Don't pink peony me, if you please! If it comes to a matter
of taste, I prefer my own to yours. You have an interesting museum,
sir, but, allow me to tell you, a most inadequate garden!"
Then Rob was obliged to laugh, and in that laugh lost the last trace of
vexation.
"Sorry, Peg! I'm a crusty beggar, but it's your own fault if I expected
too much. You were always so patient with my hobbies that I thought you
would be interested in this too. I'll do penance for baring you by
helping to arrange your garden in the way you _do_ like. We'll draw out
our plans together, or rather you shall give the orders, and I'll do the
work. Any leading ideas to offer?"
"Harmony of colour, and sequence of effect. A constant succession of
flowers, assorted as to size, and forming agreeable contrasts to their
neighbours. No red and magentas next door to each other in _my_ garden,
thank you! Order in disorder, and every season well represented!"
"I see," said Rob gravely. "It's an admirable idea, Mariquita,
admirable! We'll set to work at once. By means of digging up
everything that is in the beds at present, working diligently, and
waiting until you are old and grey-headed, there is no reason why you
should not attain your ambition in the course of the next twenty years!"
But Peggy had no intention of waiting twenty years, or twenty months
either. Immediate effect was what she demanded, and she said as much to
Rob, and repeated the words with much emphasis, backing into a bed as
she spoke, and trampling some cherished seedlings to pieces with her
sharp little heels, whereupon Rob hastily called her attention in an
opposite direction, and promised meekly to further her desire.
Not for worlds would she have acknowledged the fact to another, but as
Peggy stood this afternoon surveying the empty beds before her, sundry
prickings of conscience began to rise, lest perchance she had been too
hasty in her decision to have naught to say to bedding-out plants.
Something must be done, and that quickly, or she trembled to think what
her friends and relatives would have to say upon the subject of the
"finest garden in the county." With a vision of a prophetess she saw
before her paths of green sward arched with roses, a lily garden, sweet
and cool, and fragrant harmonies of colour massed against the trees; but
these were in the future, and in the present there were only empty beds,
with little sprigs of green peering up here and there through the dry
caked soil.
"At least I can dig up the beds and get rid of the weeds, and then
perhaps for this summer only we might take refuge in geraniums and
begonias. Just for one summer, till something else will grow." She
sighed, and set to work with her spade, giving it a push into the ground
with her foot in professional style, and pausing to gasp and straighten
her back between every second or third attempt. Astonishing what hard
work it was, and how hot one got all of a sudden! Peggy gathered the
weeds together, moralised darkly on their number, and set to work on the
surrounding beds, digging so vigorously that in an hour's time she felt
as if a week in bed would be barely sufficient to recoup her exhausted
energies. Too weary to cross to a seat, she was holding on to her
spade, and slowly straightening her back, when she became conscious that
the foreman had approached from the house, and was regarding her with
curious eyes.
"There's two pieces short of that there paper for the drawing-room," he
announced. "I thought fourteen pieces would ha' done it; but it's been
a mistake, it seems. 'Ave to get it made, I suppose, to finish the
corner."
"Oh, how dreadfully, dreadfully tiresome! We will have to wait weeks
and weeks before we can get it, and it will keep everything back."
Peggy wrung her tired hands and looked the image of despair.
"You said that you were sure fourteen pieces would be enough; and we
told you at the time to be careful, as it had to be made!"
"Ay, it do seem a pity, don't it? They rarely ever gets it the same
shade a second time," the man replied blandly. Then he jerked his thumb
towards the flower-beds, and put a deprecatory question: "Didn't you
like them, then? Wasn't they your fancy?"
"I don't know what you are talking about. Was what my fancy?"
"Those 'ere things as they put in yesterday. I thought, maybe, they was
something special, from the care they took about 'em." He gave an
explanatory kick with his foot to the weeds piled up on the gravel path,
and there was a pause of two whole minutes before a weak little voice
inquired faintly:
"Who took such care? Who put them in? I don't understand."
"The young master up at The Larches and one of his gardeners. They was
here for a good two hours. We wondered to see you scratching them up.
Joe says to me, he says, `Go down and tell her,' he says. `Oh,' I says,
`she knows what she's about!' I says. `She's not the sort to do a
trick like that,' I says."
Peggy's lips positively ached with the effort of twisting them into a
smile.
"That was very kind of you," she said. "It would be a silly trick,
would it not? Do you think you could boil the kettle for me now? I
feel badly in need of some tea."