Part 12
One cannot help wondering that so little use should be made of all this vegetable wealth. There it is, covering square leagues of common land, to be harvested by whosoever list. In former days, indeed, it was gathered in and burnt for “potashes”—chiefly for glass-making. And therein lies the explanation of the wine “laughing in the _fougère_”; ash of _fougère_, or Bracken, had in the “grand Roy’s” days become synonymous with glass itself. Again, in its dry condition, Brake was once extensively used for thatching and for litter; in some parts of the country the young plant was given as fodder to cattle and horses. Now, however, county councils forbid the building of thatch, our up-to-date cattle and horses are too fastidious as to litter and fodder, and we import our potashes. Meanwhile, Bracken threatens everywhere to stifle the Heather on our moors.
If I remember right, in some parts of France the poorer people make use of young Brake as food. And this reminds me that, some years ago, I heard the last Japanese Ambassador remark at dinner—à propos of the Asparagus that was just going round—that he wondered we should not make use in the kitchen of the Bracken he had noticed growing in such enormous and neglected quantities in England. In his country, he assured us, they eat the young shoots, when still in their folded “crozier” stage, precisely as we over here eat Asparagus, and consider them not only as delicacies, but as particularly wholesome and nutritious.
The recipe for cooking them is simple. The croziers, cut just short of the roots, are to be parboiled in strongly salted water; the first water, which extracts some unpleasantly bitter principle, is to be quickly poured off; then the shoots, thoroughly drained of this first water, are boiled in a large quantity of fresh water, drained again carefully and served with oil or butter, very much like our Sprue.
I must some day make the experiment. I wonder if the joy, now, of eating tender young Bracken would be like that of the savage devouring his declared enemy?
Meanwhile, for the sake of the desired grass, the hecatomb must be repeated daily.
XXV
[Sidenote: MORE BLACK SHEEP]
This July, not remarkable for anything but rain and dark skies, has produced a perfect outbreak of wickedness in the village. Our black sheep have turned into tigers without even the excuse of torrid weather to inflame their passions. But, indeed, the public house is always ready to supply the stimulant necessary for driving average humanity into brutal and insane crime.
Caliban, whom the reader may remember as having once worked in our Fortunate Island, and always looking as if he had just risen from all-fours, has, in our recent absence, thrown away all pretence at humanity once and for all. Though, indeed, why should the poor beasts, who generally make excellent fathers and husbands, be compared to the type of man that deliberately ruins his home? To batter your wife, terrorize your children, to squander your substance for an indulgence which ultimately destroys your health, is a mystery of perversity reserved for the superior being.
Anyway, Caliban, having drifted from place to place, and lost his last chance of employment in this district by killing a whole hot-house full of Tomatoes through drunken neglect “on” the local market gardener, as we should say in Ireland, finally locked his wife and children out of the little cottage, and shut himself in with his drunkenness in company with his aged but not less drunken parent. The power of thought having returned in the morning, the precious pair put their boosy heads together and sold the furniture, possessed themselves of every available valuable, even of Mrs. Caliban’s solitary trinket, and decamped together from the district!
Mrs. Caliban, with an infant in arms and two little girls at her skirts, has now set to work to earn enough for all. She is a valiant woman; and no doubt when she has succeeded fairly well, Caliban will return to repeat the process. She is very anxious for a separation, but cannot accomplish this, as the whereabouts of her lord and master are unknown.
* * * * *
She is less fortunate than the wife of Black Sheep No. 2. Last Saturday we were peacefully entertaining a couple of week-end visitors, when poor Mrs. Mutton crawled into our garden to “see the young lady.” The water-butt myth was cast to the winds. She had a black eye and a dislocated thumb, and informed us that Mutton had threatened to “do for her,” and that she was going in fear of her life. “When not drunk,” she remarked with the apathy of despair, “I think he’s mad!”
Mutton is well known in the district for his playful ways, and no one would consent to house his wife but an enterprising barber: on the condition, however, that Mutton did not come after her. The poor thing shivered and shook, and avowed that she could not return and pass another hour in such terrors. When she heard his step, she told us, a trembling would seize her.
“You ladies,” she said, rolling her hopeless eyes from one sympathetic listener to another, “can have no idea of the kind of life poor women like us lead!”
[Sidenote: COUNTY POLICE METHODS]
Little Jimmy Mutton and she had spent the previous night out under fear of a gun, which Black Sheep _père_ had taken to bed with him, with threats of instant use. The first idea of the owners of Villino Loki was that the woman should have protection; and here the drama took a Gilbertian form with a dash of nightmare. Her cottage being on the borders of another county, no policeman nearer than nine miles off had the right to intervene. In vain did “the young lady,” attended by the two week-end visitors, start off for the nearest magistrate and lay the case before him. Mrs. Mutton must betake herself to that far county town, by what means she best might; and if she and her poor lambs were “done for” between this and then, it would all be within the strict limits of the law as far as the magistrate was concerned. With fruitless eloquence were the perils of the situation painted in their blackest colours. Mutton, as we have said, was famous, and like Habacuc in Voltaire’s estimation, might be _capable de tout_.
Could not the local policeman take possession of the gun?
Impossible. No policeman nearer than Paddockstown could lay a finger on it.
Could not at least the village Bobby keep an eye on the house where the enterprising barber had taken in the refugees?
The Magistrate smiled at such ignorance of the law. All orders must come from Paddockstown.
“That,” remarked one of the week-end visitors as the discomfited party shook the Magistrate’s dust off their feet, “that seems a futile old gentleman!”
This week-end visitor had an emphatic manner of speech, which afforded the only relief in the exasperation of the atmosphere.
However, the affair managed to straighten itself out on, again, true Gilbertian lines. Mrs. Mutton duly found a motor-bus to convey her to Paddockstown; and there, with all the proper formality, interviewed the Magistrate and a lawyer, with the help of whom she was separated from her obstreperous Mutton. Little Jimmy gave evidence, Mutton was advised by his lawyer not to defend the case. She has now appropriately joined forces with Mrs. Caliban and is enjoying a time of peace which we trust may not be merely an interlude.
“Oh, Miss!” she cried, describing these unwonted sensations, “I’m that overjoiced, I’m afraid it’s hardly right!”
As the husband is hovering about the roads, waylaying all concerned with alarming politeness, we are a little anxious. We know that he is still _mouton enragé_ at heart; and we do not know if in spite of the mandate from Paddockstown the local police would be allowed to interfere were gun or table knife to be put into requisition.
The Dorothy Perkins are coming out, showing a most glorious kind of fire rose, which hitherto they only displayed in the autumn after a touch of frost. Combined with the delicate sprays of the Ceanothus Gloire de Versailles, they make in a tall glass vase as pretty a harmony as we know.
[Sidenote: THE NEW ROSARY]
The new Rose Garden promises complete success. Caroline Testout is coming out, fat and pink and smiling in her usual good-humoured profusion. We have a great bed in the shape of a Maltese cross in the middle of a stretch of turf in this new Rose Garden, and the other three beds are filled respectively with Madame Abel Châtenay; mixed yellow roses, among which are Betty, Lady Hillingdon, and Juliet, are specially successful; and another deep pink charmer named Madame Jules Groles. She has not yet come out. The centre bed is devoted to General MacArthur, with a Crimson Rambler pillar.
The Climbing Roses against the arches that bound this rose-lawn north and south are growing bravely; and we have lost our hearts to May Queen with its mass of bright pink flowers, which, combined with the fainter, creamier pinks of Paul Transon, make such a delicious bouquet of bloom, all on the same pillar.
The hedge of Penzance Briars, though only a couple of feet above the ground as yet, has thrown out long lines of starry blossoms, shading from faint primrose to deepest crimson, with intermediate constellations of pinks and carmines that out-do both Dorothy Perkins and Zephyrine Drouhin.
The new Rose Garden is shut off on the west by a fir-tree avenue, and we are trying to coax white and red Wichurianas up the stems, in spite of all expert pessimism. Marquise de Sinety is a delicate, warmly tinted, pinky cream Rose. Catalogues, no doubt, would call her “salmon”; but it is such a horrid word that we prefer to present the picture under another aspect.
* * * * *
Do not let anyone subject to the watery caprices of an English climate place their trust in Maman Cochet! Her heavy bud becomes hopelessly sodden after anything like a shower. One can conceive that this dowager would be a handsome enough object in a southern garden, or that she would be a good greenhouse rose; but, like many another, she does not bear adversity.
Handsome, bland Caroline Testout keeps up her self-contained smile unimpaired in fair and foul weather; “fat-faced Puss” that she is, a very Gioconda among roses, even to the close folding of her plump leaves, which remind one of that overrated charmer’s compact hands. It would take a good deal to shake her equanimity; scentless, soulless beauty!
The Lyons Rose has burst on us this year in all its splendour, a most successful combination of pink and gold. The sunset glow seems to shine through the petals.
These efforts at producing new effects are not always successful, some having a very patchy appearance, to our mind. As for the Austrian Briar, Soleil d’Or, it is more like a blood-orange cut in two than anything else, in colour, shape, and pulpy texture. From a distance the bright circles look attractive, but we should recommend it to no one who values delicacy in their blooms.
A great success are the Weeping Standards Stella. Though it is their first year, the branches are covered with lovely tinted blossoms; and what is more, these are lasting. Single carmine stars are they, with golden centres and a scent of musk.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: FLOWERING TIMES AND PLANS]
The mistress of the Villino, a foolish and impetuous person, has three times made the same mistake and omitted to ascertain the blooming season of plants which she wished to be in beauty together. So the four Weeping Standards Stella, are considerably in advance of the four Dorothys which alternate with them; and the standards Soleil d’Or were quite over before the Conrad Meyers appeared in the Lily Walk; and the contrast of pink and yellow was what had been aimed at!
In the same manner she had intended the Garland Roses to foam up in two splendid white pillars at each end of the long length of Dorothy Perkins at the opposite side of the Blue Border terrace. Of course the Garland is becoming unsightly before the fire-pink of the Dorothy begins to show in any profusion.
* * * * *
The garden—except on the upper terrace, which with Heliotrope, Lobelia, and the climbing Ceanothus keeps to the faint cool blues, untroubled by the efflorescence of the White Pet ‹which, by the way, has completely eaten out Perle des Rouges› and the very faint pink of the Ivy-Leaf Geraniums—except for the upper terrace, the garden, we say, is growing pink. What with the Verbenas and the Red Roses and the cheery coloured Ivy-Leaf Geranium called Jersey Beauty, in the Dutch garden, and the general ramp of Dorothy everywhere, it is a mass of pink.
Another year we must have more Penstemons. They are charming things, and as good as they are beautiful. In a garden nothing is beautiful that is not good, which is another facet of its likeness to Paradise.
We caress the idea of a border where perennial Gypsophila, large bushes of Monarda, Penstemons and Lavender should group and contrast and delight and rest the eye.
* * * * *
There is a walk in a wonderful garden not far from here—a garden which brings a kind of fainting, despairing envy to the soul of Loki’s Grandmother—where Lavender and Penstemons make the happiest possible effect. The walk itself is a thing of beauty; through woodland on one side, the border in question runs quite a long way against a low parapet on the other. Below this parapet the ground slopes down, and at the end of the walk there is so abrupt a fall that it seems almost to end in mid-air with a vast panorama far beneath. And on the side of the flowery border a shelving precipice falls away out of which giant stone pines hang against the distant horizon. The Lavender has grown to a hedge, and the varying soft pinks of the Penstemons run vividly against its mistiness.
Would that walk, and that border, and that view, were ours!
XXVI
We nearly had a garden tragedy yesterday afternoon. The sounds of a little dog in great distress broke the peace of the drowsy day. Loki’s Ma-Ma dashed out of the house thinking it was Loki—caught in a trap! Certainly the little dog—whichever it was—was in desperate straits.
“That’s the voice of my Betty,” cried Juvenal, galloping to the rescue in his shirt-sleeves. “My treasure, my little girl! I’m coming!”
It was well indeed that he did hurry, for Betty had fallen into the deep water-butt in the Rose Garden; and if she had not had the sense to scream for help, and to hold on to the rim of the barrel with all her little claws, she would have been a drowned Betty, and nobody the wiser, perhaps, for days and days.
We think it would have broken Juvenal’s heart.
Both Arabella and Loki were standing staring stiffly instead of doing what was expected of dogs of such intellect: which was running to fetch human help.
[Sidenote: PERSIANS AND A WICKED WORLD]
On a former occasion however, when Kitty-Wee had a fit, poor little darling, Loki acted up to our opinion of him. We had gone for a walk on the moor, and the Persian Princess, still half in her kittenhood, had accompanied us, with that touching display of pleasure at being in our company which makes the Fur Children so endearing. She had to roll on the grass in front of us, sharpen her claws on every tree, and rub her pretty head against our skirts in the endeavour to show her feelings. We suppose these feelings were too much for her. We had halted in the greenhouse when Loki dashed in upon us, whimpering in a frightful state of agitation. He drew his Grandmother out of the greenhouse, and rushed up to stand over his little fur sister, crying out loud in sympathy and distress.
She was a small convulsed heap upon the ground. Fortunately the tap, which ran into one of those delectable barrels of odoriferous water so precious to the garden, was quite close, and we were able to administer first aid with promptitude.
For all who do not know it: cold water to the head gives immediate relief to any little creature in such a seizure.
* * * * *
She quite grew out of them. But, alas! our thistledown Princess, our dear pretty silver lady! We have delayed to write her sad fate into the pages of the chronicle of the happy Fur Family. She was stolen! We often lie awake thinking of her. Pampered as she was; so accustomed to be thought of, and cherished, and made much of; to have her pearly robe brushed and combed to the last point of perfection, her dainty appetite catered for; to find a caress and a cuddle whenever she was in the mood for it! A lurid mystery ‹accompanied by a great deal of hard swearing› envelops her loss. She was lost on a half-hour’s motor-trip which her family, struck with momentary idiocy, was allowing her to undertake alone. She was, in fact, about to contract another matrimonial alliance with a prince of her own race, and was so securely packed in her luxurious travelling basket, so unmistakably labelled, so solemnly handed over to the care of the conductor of the motor ’bus, that it did not seem as if she could come to harm.
But Blue Persians, as well as pink pearls, are over-precious chattels to confide to a dishonest world! The conductor of the next ’bus to that by which she was expected, handed an empty basket to the envoy from the other side; and when this was refused, declared the cat had escaped on the way. As the basket was hermetically closed, this lie had not even the merit of being plausible. But puzzle succeeded puzzle when the waiter from the Golf Club House, a reliable witness, deposed having picked up the same basket still securely fastened at every corner—but minus the cat—on the first round of the ’bus. “It could have gone to Siberia in that basket,” he declared, “it was that strong and solid!”
The local police, a most intelligent and valuable body of men, declared that nothing could be done, “as no man could be taken up for telling a lie.” And the railway company, after punching a large hole in the basket, announced that as the cat was not insured, we might sue them for five shillings! We advertised and beat the countryside in vain—Kitty-Wee has gone out of our lives. If we only knew that she was happy, the ache at our hearts would be less.
We must fill the gap, and are deliberating whether a pair of Blue Persians, or an orange couple, would afford us the greater joy. We think to decide on the latter would be less callous to the memory of Kitty-Wee, and provide perhaps a better match in the little Villino that runs so much to orange and yellow.
* * * * *
Never could there be anything more beautiful than the St. John’s Wort along the moorland roads. It has been a day of golden heat, the distant woods have shimmering purple vapours in their hollows, and the hills are misty blue. There had been a fire last year in a great flat stretch of pinewood that runs into heather and moor, high above where the road begins to fall into the first of the little country towns between us and London. The wood had been cleared of the dead trees and we suppose it is this which has given encouragement to the great yellow weed. However it may be, it is a field of cloth of gold now. Pines rise up at intervals in their dark solemnity. Royal purple of the heather runs into the gold. It is a meeting of colour that ought to be immortalized.
XXVII
Time has run away with us, and the garden chronicle has been silent. The Ramblers have blazed in the garden, more especially the indefatigable “Dorothy,” till one has grown almost tired of such a repetition of vivid pink.
The Mistress of the Villino has been planning “toning-down effects” for next year and means to run a border of Catmint or Dwarf Lavender against the “Dorothy” hedge.
The Lily Walk, which we shall have to call by another name, since, with a few exceptions, the Lilies decline to have anything to say to it, is, should the scheme contemplated be successful, to show a cool vista of greys, lavender blues, and “rose mourante” behind the arch where the same irrepressible Perkins flaunts herself in such splendour. The Delphiniums, which have done so well there, will have spent their hour of glorious life before the arch enters upon its triumph.
What a mausoleum that Lily Walk has proved itself! It has been one of our tragedies! Adam is quite dispassionate, and says “it’s the Lily disease; and there’s a deal of it about.”
By one of those freakish accidents that will occur in the best regulated gardens, a batch of Fairy Lilies was planted _behind_ the ramping Alstrumerias. This was discovered too late, when these bold Peruvians were succumbing.
[Sidenote: TONING DOWN EFFECTS]
But besides the amount of sickly, straggling “Candidums,” “Auratums,” and “Tigers” that have disgraced the border, there is the unaccountable number of bulbs that have been swallowed up in it! The whole thing must be dug out this autumn. And the scheme is now to grow Ceanothus “Gloire de Versailles” up the wooden trellis at the back between the Roses the foliage of which is always blighted, and to have a pillar of Blush Rambler at the end, by the side of the Wellingtonia which closes the border. Bushes of Ceanothus Azureas, as well as the successful “Gloire de Versailles”; a drift of Achillea, shading from the palest pink to deep carmine; bushes of Catmint; the new pale pink Spirea, perennial Gypsophila; mauve Galiga ‹Salvia, Miss Jekyll recommends›; Sea Lavender and a couple of clumps of Eringium will complete the effect. Perhaps there shall be Moon Daisies, pale pink and mauve Penstemons, and one or two groups of “Cottage Maid” Antirrhinums to fill up the gaps. But what we feel is needed is the grey, mauve, silver, and lavender-blue tinting against which Dorothy Perkins may be as flaming as she likes.
* * * * *
It is rare to find Rose Achilleas anywhere. Yet they are as pretty a thing as we have ever seen in a border; the blossoms seeming to drift on their slender stems, one above the other like little sunset clouds.
What has been for once a complete pleasure is the wide bed under the drawing-room window. The Ceanothus—which loves us—has been a treasure of delicate bloom; and, against it, the great old bushes of lavender have thrust their spikes in profusion. Just the right tone to harmonize. Then the Longiflorum Lilies—excellent, sturdy, conscientious darlings!—have lifted their satin shining trumpets above the Heliotrope that loves us too; and Lobelia, the one vivid line of colour, has rimmed the thick cushion of “Mrs. Sinkins’” foliage most artistically. The grey-green gives the finishing touch to a really reposeful combination. There are also two or three clumps of Nicotiana Affinis, softly mauve, and faded purple crimson. To gaze at that corner against the amethyst of the moor is a never-ending delight.
[Sidenote: A CHAPTER OF DISASTERS]
But another garden disaster has been the annihilation of all the seedlings which we sowed in the open border! It is laughable now, but sad too, to turn back the pages and read the vainglorious project of running a dazzling ribbon of Nemophila against the Dorothy Perkins hedge. ‹It might have been frightful; so perhaps Providence kindly intervened!› But that Nigella “Miss Jekyll” should have refused her mysterious and pretty presence in the Blue Border is a deep disappointment.