Part 7

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.

* * * * *

And now, as the sun shone day by day both lustily and long, the great difficulty of watering arose.

This was the time in the ideal gardens told of in my precious books when the busy garden boy rolls his clanking watering-tank, unfurls the sinuous hose, and from morning to night supplies the thirsting flowers.

In the Master's garden there was no lack, and his long tubes were even emptying themselves, reckless extravagance! on the velvety lawn.

But for me, oh, lack-a-day! The ground felt like hot dust, the seedlings drooped, and the Others told me not to pray for rain as they were doing the opposite, lawn tennis being in full swing.

We had a rain-water tank, and in the stables water was laid on, but it was a far cry from the stables to the garden, especially the kitchen garden, and old Griggs was a slow mover. The watering-tank groaned its way, but only the two most important beds got their daily draught. They were beginning to turn yellow in an encouraging fashion, but it takes some time for the eight inches apart to fill up and become the mass of colour dreamt of.

Then I disorganised the domestic economy by insisting on the contents of the household baths finding their way down to my rose bushes. At first the housemaids liked the little jaunt, but soon there were complaints of "'indering me getting on with my work, miss," and I began to inspect possibilities of converging drain-pipes and establishing receptive barrels; also I gave his Reverence small peace in those days in my desire for a further laying on of water to the kitchen garden and some yards of hose, but he said that these were big undertakings, he must think, etc., and for that hot, dry summer we got no further than thoughts.

Griggs hated me worse than ever, an unavoidable evil. We had one pitched battle, and though it did some little good, the spirit of a defeated foe is not one easy to work with.

In the dark winter evenings Griggs seeks his fireside as the light fails, or even before if it suits him. Against this I have nothing to say, but when the long days come with their need for more gardening care, I object to the early tea-time departure.

I found my precious seedlings drooping and Griggs ready to depart for his tea.

I love my own tea, so a fellow-feeling made me kind.

"But come back, Griggs, for some watering must be done."

"I can't come no more to-night, oi 'ave to see to things a bit up at 'ome."

"Griggs "--and my voice held dignified rebuke--"you are gardener _here_, and these flowers are your first duty."

"There ain't no gettin' round with all them little plants wot you've started. I did give 'em a watering two days ago!"

"Two days ago! Don't _you_ want your tea every day?"

"Maybe it'll rain soon, and that'll pull 'em round. They ain't human critturs. Don't you fuss over them, miss. Oi knows their ways. Bless you, I've been a gardener these forty years."

At this I rose.

And what had been the result? Would he care to have his gardening capacity judged by the dearth that reigned at the Rectory? Did the heavy weed crops speak well for his industry? Did the underground interlacement of that pernicious ground-elder do him credit? Did the roses, the jasmine, etc., etc. My pent-up indignation overflowed and Griggs had the full benefit.

The only impression I conveyed was that "Miss Mary was takin' on in a terrible unchristian spirit." Clerk Griggs never had a doubt of his own uttermost fulfilment of the law. In his opinion, "young ladies should play the pianny and leave gardening to them as knows." Griggs meant to go home. I felt this was a decisive moment.

"You will come back and do the necessary watering," I said, "and I shall be here to see it is done; you quite understand?"

With this I walked away, and Griggs came back. I got his Reverence to support me, and we decided to give an extra hour's rest in the middle of the day and insist on the watering, without which all previous efforts are rendered, null and void.

* * * * *

A useful little book, procured for the modest sum of ninepence, gave me a more intimate knowledge of the dwellers in my garden. It is a plain little book, though it reads like a fairy tale, with its stories of marriage-customs and the wind and bees and flying insects as lovers. Straightforward and interesting reading, and to those who begin to desire more knowledge of their plant life, highly to be recommended is this _Story of the Plants_, by Grant Allen. For surely if you love your flowers it will not be from your own more or less selfish point of view that you will regard them. Their aims and objects will interest you; their growth and evolution be of importance; and, to come round again to one's own advantage, what is best for them must also be best for the garden, since flowers in their full beauty is the gardener's object, and the plants' too.

But the plants go further; they wish to end in seed. All their fine show, their sweetness and light, is with this object in view; and here I for one must come in, in heartless fashion, and thwart them. My scissors in those summer days were as much employed in cutting off dying bloom as in selecting fresh ones. Not a sweet-pea, not an antirrhinum, not a rose must hang fading on its stem. For I must lure my plants on to further flowering and prevent the feeling of "duty done" and a fine set of seeds with which they would fain wind up their summer's career. And it is a business, this chopping off of old heads. "No strength to go that way, if you please," I said to my flowers; "keep it all for blossoms and growing purposes, and I promise that your seed shall not cease from the earth, in spite of your particular thwarted efforts." When I happen to want a seed pod preserved, I mean to label it with brilliant worsted, but my garden must have grown indeed before that good time comes.

The seedlings which, sown in the open, were now rewarding Jim's matutinal thinnings-out, were a comfort and encouragement. The intensely blue cornflowers furnished many a dinner-table, and though they did not face the wind with all the backbone desirable, I had not staked them, they formed a very good background to the less tall pinky-white godetias, and these, too, in July were a boon to those Others. They last very well in water, and, if diligently cut and not allowed to seed, they continue a fine show of bloom into the early autumn.

The Shirley poppies were pure joy. Sunlight or moonlight they were a feast for the eyes; but, _N.B._, only those which had been properly thinned out and cared for. Some had escaped this process, and the result was invariably miserable little starved plantlets, who would have been cut as poor relations could they have been seen by their fine, stately, well-developed, gorgeously-attired sisters in a patch of ground that they beautified with every shade of pink, and salmon, and white, and rose. So dainty, too, were the bright petals, like crumpled satin, delicately gauffered at the edges; and what matter that their day was brief, as befits such delicate beauties. There were more and more to follow; green bud on bud hanging their small heads among the sage-green leaves, until the time came for them too to "come out" and reign as beauties for a space as long as a butterfly's life.

There was a chorus of praise from the Others.

"Now, why don't you grow more of those?"

"Why did you not fill the two round beds with these? They make a much finer show!"

"Are they very difficult to grow, or very expensive? Why not more?"

"Don't they last? Won't they come again? Oh, but I would make them!"

"You shall do the thinning out and watering," said Jim, grimly, while I tried, but quite in vain, to explain that permanence was the chief thing needed by the two round beds, and that my yellow design would go on.

"They aren't half so effective," the Others murmured, "but of course you will have it your own way!"

* * * * *

The mignonette failed me; a few straggling plants and no bloom was all that packet did for me. I thought it grew as a weed everywhere, and my soil suits weeds! But I cannot master the mystery of what happens to some things below ground. The anemones never gave a sign of life. "They've rotted, that's what they've done," said Griggs, sagaciously, as he dug the spot where they had been buried and found no trace of anything. I intend to try again. Someone said damp had that effect on their roots, so next time for a more open, more sunny spot; but maybe that will prove too dry.

Those hot days of July and August! Alas and alas! how I and my flowers suffered from the "too-dry." With the exception of my blazing yellow beds and my nurslings for next year, which, after my interview with Griggs, did receive a daily draught, my other flowers lifted withered faces to a piteously sunny sky and dwindled away into little dried-up sticks, all for the lack of water. A drop now and then is worse than useless; it only brings their eager roots hastily to the watered surface, and there the strong sun catches them and they are withered up for good and all.

The sweet-pea hedge that had been a source of delight and use, and that I had kept most diligently picked, during three days' absence converted its blossoms into seed-pods and then gave up the ghost.

I tried to pick it back to life with the destruction of pods and a good watering, but it was no good, and I had to turn my attention to the other less advanced sweet-peas and try and keep them going; the heat seemed to scorch the bloom and hurry on the pod.

The established perennials may survive the drought; later rains may revive them, but to the poor little annuals it is good-bye for ever; and many a zinnia, stock, lobelia, and even marigold, though it is more hardy, had but a poor little starved life, and passed away with a tiny drooping head.

It was heart-breaking. Another year I must not have so large a family of these tender children. The hardy annuals which can be given straight away to Mother Earth's care fare better, and coming quicker to the flowering time are not so wasted. But those grown in boxes and transplanted claim more attention, and they could not have it; though to all water is a necessity, and they fade the sooner for its lack. The poor salpiglosis needs other soil; heavier, damper, I suppose, and some shade. I fear I must admire them in other people's gardens.

Griggs and the clanging tank on wheels was a poor substitute for the "blessed rain from heaven" that falls on all alike, while his unwilling steps could scarcely be induced to water those that lay nearest to his hand; and I could not expect him--even I could not--to water everywhere every day.

If I had water laid on! if I had a hose! how I would use it!

"Yes, and think of my bill," said his Reverence. I suppose this is the way they talk of the revenue in India when the poor people are starving.

Well, well, poor folk should not have more children than they can feed, so I must give my attention more especially to the deeper-rooted perennials, though even they hang limp-leaved and will reward me in the future only according to my treatment of them. It is the Law of the Universe.

Some patches of seedlings in a neighbouring garden made all my resolves to curtail expenditure in that direction fly in an instant.

These were Mother Earth's hardy babies; no boxes or transplanting were needed. It was a mass of the bright-coloured heads of the annual phlox which excited my admiration. They are more brilliant, though smaller, than their perennial sisters, and for cutting they are quite invaluable. They last, too, through three or four months. My garden must have them.

Another yellow patch caught my fancy. (I have a theory yellow flowers are hardiest; it is the primitive colour.) This was eschscholtzia, Californian poppy in other words. These seem to me indispensable; their grey-green leaves make the prettiest decoration.

* * * * *

In the Master's garden peace and plenty reigned. The hose played all day long; the grass was a joy, green as perennial youth; the flowers nodded at him in full satisfaction, and he sat and smiled at them, "feeling good," as the Americans say.

I went home and noted the brown lawn, in which even the plantains were beginning to turn colour, and thought of my border, and "felt bad." Even the brilliant yellow of my two round beds, staring like sunflowers, full among the starving, failed to comfort me.

It is always the one lamb crying in the wilderness that pulls the true shepherd's heart away from the ninety and nine trim little sheep safe in the fold.

* * * * *

Jim was very busy those days and more or less deserted me. One of the Others, a mankind from Sandhurst, divided his allegiance, and holidays and cricket absorbed him.

"One has to slack off a bit," he said, "and old Griggs can water. I'll come on again in the autumn; there will be some work with those tap-roots, you know."

But when a question arose of how much to the good my reign had proved, then Jim was with me at once. Even "Sandhurst" and the grand ideas that are a necessity of that period of development, were not allowed to be too snubbing.

"You look at those two yellow beds," said Jim. "That's one year's work, good. Next year we will have a bit more, up to that style. You try and get up some weeds yourself and then you can talk."

And indeed those two yellow beds were a satisfaction; they grew and grew until not a spare inch was left between root and root, and they flared away gorgeously in the face of the hottest sun. I kept all dead heads cut down, for they were to go on right to the end of October.

The antirrhinums came on bravely, too; my little straight soldiers, now no longer so thin and leggy, but beginning to branch out, and carrying their stiff red, white or yellow spear of flowers bolt upright in the centre. But they were still small, and I was glad that I had secured a quicker effect with my yellow design. They performed a gay march past in that forlorn old border in the front, but more toward the end of the summer, owing really to the delay in pricking them out. His Reverence said they consoled him for the disaster of the crocuses in spring.

I bought some little plants of creeping jenny, six at threepence each, and put them in round one of the stumps holding a group of rather mauvy-coloured creeping geraniums. They took kindly to the position, and yellow and mauve go excellently well together. Also I added three plants of gypsophila to my long border. I felt the Others would appreciate them.

I often wanted to buy ready-made flowers, and a flower shop or nursery garden became a real danger to me; but there was the five pounds to be thought of, or rather the few shillings which remained, and oh! the many things that were really necessities of the first order.

In August Griggs and I, friends for the moment, took cuttings of those geraniums whose colours, for some reason Griggs failed to fathom, pleased me. Of course those that I least liked offered the better cuttings, but I was inexorable and told Griggs I had other uses for that solitary frame. We "struck" the cuttings in some big pots, six in each. They grew easily, and for next year I shall only have the colours I like. Then, rather in astonishment at myself for patronising geraniums, I bought a hundred cuttings of Henry Jacoby, a good dark red, for six shillings. I can't help coming round to the opinion that geraniums are an excellent stand-by. A dozen pink climbing geraniums were given me. My eye of faith already sees them growing up the verandah and causing even the Others to say pretty things to me. During the autumn and winter, as little cuttings they will pass their time making root in my frame. Yellow daisies and white, in wooden boxes, were to join them there; and, in order to be really forward with some things, a good supply of antirrhinum and lobelia cuttings. Naturally they will be more forward and stronger than the seedlings of February, but I have to face the question of room.

* * * * *

There comes a time of lull in the life of a garden when, if only the watering be seen to, it is possible for even the head gardener to take a holiday. In August what has been done is done and cannot be altered; and what left undone must remain so. It is too late now, and the hope of "next year" is turned to eagerly, for "next year" is the only remedy left.