Part 8
Later in the day when all was stilled once more, and the lovely April afternoon as full of country peace as it should be, the two went out and down the lane; the guest in a donkey-chair and her daughter by her side. To the latter’s discomfiture on their return they met the portly form of Mrs. Boyt, emerging from the walled garden with an empty egg-basket. Mrs. Polly was very anxious to skirmish the donkey-chair past with an ingratiating and nervous giggle; but neither the donkey nor the lady in the chair would fall in with her strategy. The lady in the chair had a liking for Mrs. Boyt, and was amused at the thought of a little chat with her; and the donkey, like all self-respecting donkeys, was bound in honour to stop dead when it was most wanted to advance. Perhaps, too, Mrs. Polly’s artfulness had aroused lingering suspicions, for the lady in the chair was very firm:
“Good evening, Mrs. Boyt. ‹No, Polly, it’s not cold at all. No, I’m not going in yet.› How is Mr. Boyt?”
“Mr. Boyt he be fairly, thanking you kindly, ’m. Of course he be a bit tired this evening.”
Mrs. Polly, with a wild eye, intervened.
“I’m afraid it’s tea-time, darling. H’m—H’m—A beautiful evening—Mrs. Boyt, my Mother was admiring the little calves—Come on, Bathsheba!”
In vain she clucked, in vain she pulled the reins; Bathsheba merely twitched an ear. The clear voice from the bath-chair put all efforts to turn the conversation on one side with a decision which swept her into silence.
“Tired? Did you say your husband was tired, Mrs. Boyt?”
“Yes’m. Pigs be very tiring.”
“Pigs, Mrs. Boyt?—Oh! what was he doing with the poor pigs this morning? He wasn’t—he wasn’t killing them?”
“Oh, ’ess ’m.” And, blind to the horror and disgust on her listener’s face, Mrs. Boyt proceeded with unction:
“Beautiful pigs they was, six of them.”
“Oh, but he didn’t do it himself?”
“Oh, ’ess ’m.” Mrs. Boyt was much shocked. “We allus do it ourselves, I do hold en, and Boyt he do stick en—very tiring it do be for us both!”
It was only Mrs. Polly who saw the humour of the situation in after days. The beloved lady in the bath-chair remained overwhelmed with the tragedy. It was not a subject that could be referred to again in her presence.
XVII
How delightful it is to come back to our moors after London! Loki’s Grandmother’s heart always sinks when the bricks and mortar begin to spring up about the road, and the houses close in around her. Sometimes she thinks that what weighs upon it is the sense of all those miles of squalor; of all those hives of human misery; of all the sin and suffering. Perhaps, however, she is influenced by mere distaste of the crowd; displeasure in living one of a herd in a jostle of houses; the ignominy of being a number in a row with undesired neighbours on either side! Who would prefer to look on pavements, area railings and lamp-posts; to listen to the roar and turmoil of a life one has no ambition to share—a life vexing the peace of night and day, rather than feast the eyes on cool green loveliness, on rolling moorland; the ear on vast delicious silence or the choiring of windswept woods? How, in fact, can anyone who has the choice live in town, instead of in the fair, quiet, spacious country? One cannot feel one’s soul one’s own in London: bits of it are perpetually escaping to join the giddy midge dance. The individuality evaporates. But then—there are concerts, and Wagner’s operas; and one’s own select friends and the interest of the great intellectual movements! The splendid activities of life seem to pass one by in the country. Well, we suppose, like everything else in existence, one must take the see-saw as it comes, and accept the bumps for the sake of the soaring. But we are always glad to come back to Villino Loki.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: A SCHEME OF AZURE AND TAWNY]
The discoveries one makes in the garden after ten days’ absence are thrilling. The three rows of Thomas More Tulips under the dining-room window are colouring to a glorious orange, and the Forget-me-nots planted between them are showing little sparks of blue. The tawny Wallflowers at the back are not all we could wish; but, even pinched as they are, the effect of their many velvet hues is satisfactory. There is a single row of double Tulips ‹Prince of Orange› at the edge of the bed, between the Forget-me-nots. In a week or so, looking up the terrace, there will be five lines of flame running gloriously out of the blue; a sight to delight the eye, against the curious bronze purple the moor wears just now.
The Scillas, which we thought were going to fail us, have been a tremendous success, and still form pools of glowing blue round the almond trees. Next year we intend to make a feature of Scillas. They are such tiny bulbs that they can scarcely interfere with anything; and we shall slip them in among the perennials in every corner, besides putting more in the grass terraces. We are also going to run riot with “Steeple-Jacks,” especially the light turquoise kind. They last an immense time and are of a delicious tint. The long border of Campanelle Jonquils that we have planted in what we call the “Bowling Green” are drawn up as for a review, stiff and straight like little soldiers in bright gold helmets. Next year we shall invest in three or four thousand Daffodils for the rough places under the trees, and we mean to star the banks with Primroses and Wild Violets.
* * * * *
We have made a vast improvement these days by turfing most of the walks, and we now look out on a delicious sweep of green. The Lily Border and its opposite neighbour, the tongue of land with the Buddleia trees and shrubs, look infinitely more attractive thus set into the verdure. Great clumps of yellow Polyanthuses and self-sown Forget-me-nots make it gay while we are waiting for the Narcissus Poeticus, the Poppies, the Lilies and other joys to break upon us. The field of mixed Narcissus under the trees is going to be one sheet of blossom in a few days, blown about, though they be, poor darlings, by these fierce and cruel winds. The papers are full of exclamations over “winter in April”: so far our high-pitched garden has stood it well. This is the advantage, we suppose, of its natural backwardness.
We are now fired with the desire to turf the Dutch Garden; the path under the second terrace, _i.e._ Blue Border, and also the path leading from the Bowling Green, so that we shall look down on a succession of green levels, each with its wealth of flowers. We want to make the whole little place shine like a jewel out of the rough setting of the moor.
[Sidenote: TEMPTATION]
Talk of the zest of gambling! ’Tis impossible that it could more possess the soul in defiance of purse and prudence than the garden mania. If Loki’s Grandmother had hold of a cheque book ‹which she hasn’t› she is afraid the family substance would flow away from month to month into bulbs and blossoms, tubers and saxifrages, clumps and climbers; not to speak of such prosaic but necessary accompaniments as loam, manures, lawn-mixtures and “vaporisers.” She would build at least two new greenhouses and double her garden staff. And perhaps after all she wouldn’t be half as happy as she is. For she might be led into “named novelties,” and garden rivalries, and splendours of artificial rockeries where in the centre of vast beds of slag some microscopic curiosity no larger than a spider would spread a fairy claw in the shadow of a monstrous label. Perhaps she might be bitten with an unwholesome passion for Orchids, and spend the portion of her only child, and all the fur grandchildren, on the devilish attractions of those plants which are, we are convinced, flowers of evil.
Just now her last extravagance has been to order three and six worth of White Honesty at ninepence a dozen, to plant in among the new Rhododendrons; and she is suffused with satisfaction at the prospect of anything so cheap and charming. We recommend the effect, discovered quite accidentally.
* * * * *
We have really abominable weather. It is very unusual.
“Oh, to be in England, Now that April’s there!”
is an aspiration justified as a rule by a tender interlude between the tantrums of March and the asperities of May. Last year April came in skipping like a kid on the Campagna, even its freakishness full of attraction. Is anything more charming than to see the kids playing among the flocks, as one drives along those roads of haunting and mysterious beauty—under that sky incomparable in its gem-like purity; to see the shepherd in his sheepskin seated on a fence with his legs cross-bandaged, the shrill pipe to his lips; to hear his wild strain and know that it was all just the same a thousand years ago and more? The kids, as they leap out of the scattered flocks, are cut against the blue as on some classic frieze; the tawny, melancholy plain falls and rises and falls again till the hills amethystine, snow-capped, close the field of vision in the far distance! The broken line of an aqueduct gleams as if golden.
“To be in Italy, Now that April’s there!”
Loki’s Grandmother believes she would give up her country and Villino Loki, and expatriate herself for ever gladly. But Italy is not expatriation, it is the home of the soul. ‹Loki’s Grandpa says he quite admits all that—but that for a permanency he prefers his Surrey hills.›
The fires on the Campagna are rose-carmine as the pointed flames pulsate upwards. Our fires here are only just the usual yellows. Where is it that Italy holds the secret? Is it in the translucence of the atmosphere? How the sunlight there lies on a common plaster wall! How the stone flushes! Just a little white Villino on a hill-side stands in a radiance of its own, and is not white at all but topaz coloured!
* * * * *
To-day, the fifteenth of April, has been as grey and bleaching a day here as we never wish to meet again. Even the spears of the Narcissus are bruised and drooping.
XVIII
Mrs. Mutton, poor soul, has had a dead infant. It is perhaps scarcely to be wondered at, as she had another encounter with the water-butt shortly before the event; but she is as much “taken-to” as if she had been hoping to bring an heir-apparent into a realm of splendour. The doctor, to console her, asked her hadn’t she plenty already.
“I did think it unkind of him, Miss! It does seem ’ard! I did so seem to long for this one to live!”
We had a confidential conversation with the experienced matron who was ministering to her, and we mentioned the water-butt with some severity. But Mrs. Tosher would have none of this. Hers is a large mind philosophy:
“Ho! well, you see, Miss, it’s just as it takes them. I don’t say as Mutton isn’t a bit fond of his glass; but after all, Miss,” she smiled indulgently, “you must remember he was a bit upset-like. It isn’t as if there ’adn’t been a reason. When ’e ’eard there was going to be another, it turned ’im against ’er. Of course, poor feller! That was only to be expected like—”
“Good Heavens!”
Mrs. Tosher smiled more broadly than ever at our innocence.
“Some men do take it very ’ard!”
Words failed us. We could not reason upon such a point of view.
At the bottom of the garden the “little cot,” as Mrs. Adam calls it, which she and her husband have made so pretty, has been the scene of a similar domestic event which makes the contrast still more poignant. A little Eve, in fact, has been born into our small garden of Eden. She has received a joyful welcome. That most attractive child, black-eyed Adam Junior, with the mysterious intuition of childhood had recently been bombarding heaven for a little sister. He is now thrilled and triumphant at the success of his prayers. We personally are quite pleased with the addition to the _famiglia_.
We wonder whether it is because of the Italian atmosphere that has so unaccountably descended on Villino Loki that we and our establishment are really falling into relations not unlike those which so happily subsist between master and servant in Italy. The Master is not master, but Father-in-chief; the servant are not servants, but members of his family—the _famiglia_.
We were afraid our last winter in Rome had spoilt us for English ways. We had a delightful famiglia there. Fioravanti di Rienzo, the pearl of cooks; Camillo Lanti, the clever, busy, and quite reasonably peculating butler; and Aristide ‹surname unknown›, the superb coachman, all begged with tears to come back to England with us.
“Take but a postcard,” cried Camillo, “and write upon it ‘Camillo, come,’ and instantly I start.”
“Will ever anyone drive the Excellencies as I drive them?” Aristide demanded. “I would learn the ways of Londra in a day—two days. To learn the ways of Londra, that would be nothing; but to drive another family, that I feel I cannot ever again!”
[Sidenote: A FEARFUL DREAM]
It was Fioravanti whom we loved the most, and whom we did really try to get over to us later. But it was a case of binding engagements on one side and the other. He had given his word, as a man of honour, to remain a year with his new family, and we were pledged to some new cook at the moment when he was free. So it all came to nothing—which was perhaps just as well. He was a choleric little man. Loki’s Mamma dreamt he stabbed the kitchen-maid and buried her in the garden, which was not at all an unlikely thing to happen, for, like Vatel, his dishes were his glory, his honour was bound up in them, and the race of Cinderellas in this land would inflame the blood of such an enthusiast.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: ROMAN MEMORIES]
This is not to say that all Italian servants are like those three. We had some very thrilling experiences in the shape of Roman rascality during our first weeks of housekeeping there. After the odd custom we had one woman servant to three men; and, as the genus housemaid does not exist at all in many parts of the Continent, we had extreme difficulty in procuring a _donna di faccenda_. We had a whole large house in the Via Gregoriana, and it was imperative we should have something female to scrub its bedrooms and bathrooms.—Scrub? It is not a word you could get any Roman to understand the meaning of, much less put into application; but still we had to get somebody to sweep the dust into the corner or under the rug, and pass an occasional wet rag languidly round the rim of a bath. Loki’s Ma-Ma, being the Italian scholar of the family, engaged the staff. She was enchanted with the appearance of a splendid young girl from the Campagna, with cheeks like ripe nectarines, and a coroneted black head. Alert and brisk as a mountain kid, she seemed to us. Alas! who could have thought it? The creature was a bacchante! She ordered in a cask of wine all for herself, and then ran out the second evening and never came in till the next morning. Having danced with Bacchus all night, she was altogether unfit for any Christian habitation in the morning. It may be all very well to sleep off the red fumes on a thymy bank in a pagan world; but it’s not at all poetical or attractive at close quarters within four walls! A sordid, pitiful, revolting business! And the happy mountain kid, who proved after all to be only a bad little gutter goat, had to be driven forth when the legs that had caracoled so much were able to crawl again.
Aristide had a profile like the head of a philosopher on a Roman coin. He was a magnificent driver. We had a pair of powerful, fiery Russian horses, and they wanted all his skill. Whenever they took to plunging—and when they did so they struck sparks out of the stones and filled the street with the thunder of their hoofs—Aristide’s method of reassuring “his family” was invariably to gather the reins in one hand and blow his nose with great _désinvolture_ with the other. He always turned sideways to do this, flourishing an immense pocket-handkerchief, as one who would say: “Behold! how calm I am!... Have no fear!”
Only on the occasions when we discarded our carriage for the use of a motor was the harmony disturbed between Aristide and ourselves. He would droop on his box for days afterwards and take the characteristic Roman revenge of declining to shave.
Loki’s Grandmother developed a sudden and violent attack of influenza on one of these motor expeditions, and had to be conveyed home in a collapsed condition.
“Ah,” said Aristide, “if Mamma had been with me, this would not have happened! Autos are nasty feverish things.”
* * * * *
We were very sorry to leave our Roman house, with its delicious proximity to the Pincio. It was a very old house, with a round marble staircase, deep-grilled windows, and a delightful tiled inner courtyard filled with green, where a fountain splashed day and night—a courtyard into which the sunshine literally poured. A great many of the objects which now give us pleasure at Villino Loki we placed originally in that double drawing-room which the owners of the house had left in somewhat denuded condition.
[Sidenote: ORANGES AND ALMOND BLOSSOM]
The gardener of the Barberini Palace kept us supplied with hired plants. Never have we seen Azaleas or Orange trees grown like those, with such exquisite artistic freedom. We had a Tangerine tree that was a complete joy. This arrangement worked beautifully for the first month. But unfortunately the gardeners, father and son, were professed anarchists and, when they were in their cups, their ethical principles overcame their business sense. Loki’s Grandmother had one day to stand by helplessly while Loki’s Ma-Ma was cursed and vituperated in a foam of vulgar Italian for innocently requesting to have a faded Azalea replaced. Not being able to speak Italian herself, she could not come to the assistance of her more talented daughter.... And both felt ignominiously inclined to cry!... Alas! that any spot so beauty-haunted should have been desecrated by such coarse and stupid passions! Those gardens of the Barberini, with their Lemon groves and Orange groves; the lush grass filled with Narcissus and Violets, and, in the Roman way, with water dripping from every corner; with the bits of columned wall and the statues and the three great stone pines against the blue sky! It is all Italy in one small enclosure.
We moved from the Pincian Hill to much less interesting quarters; but, with the luck that followed us all through that happy time, quite close to the Borghese gardens. There we had a black-and-white tiled dining-room and a long drawing-room all hung with pearl grey satin and a wonderful Aubusson carpet. And when the room was filled with almond blossom there were compensations for the exiguity of our accommodation. The lady who was obliging enough to accept us as her tenants ‹for a rent that filled our Roman friends with horror at our profligate extravagance›, although bearing a noble Austrian name, it was darkly whispered, had a commercial origin. Her businesslike spirit certainly showed itself in her transactions with us; for neither blankets, nor cooking utensils, nor the necessary glass and china were forthcoming, in spite of magnificent assurances.
“What will you?” said Fiori, our beloved little chef, shrugging his shoulders, “_Sono Polacchi!_” “The Countess,” he informed the young housekeeper, “sent in her maid, and I showed her the few poor pans, the miserable couple of pots she expected me to do with. ‘Is it not enough?’ she cried. ‘Enough?’ I answered. ‘Enough perhaps for your lady, for a service that is content with an egg on a plate, or one solitary cutlet! But my noble family must be nobly served.’”
Excellent Fiori, he used to trot upstairs every night to receive his orders, clad in the most spotless white garments and a new white paper cap, which he doffed with a superb gesture on entering the room. Upon receiving a well-deserved compliment, he would spread out his small fat hands and bow profoundly, exclaiming, “My duty, Excellency, only my duty!”
In one single instance was his entire content in our establishment clouded; that was when, in a moment of abstraction, he forgot to send up a dish of young peas—the first in the market—which he had prepared with his own superlative skill, and adorned with a pat of fresh butter whipped to a cream at the top: “_All’Inglese_,” he called it. We believe he spent the evening in tears, and he could not speak of it next day without emotion.
“Useless, useless, to try and console me, Excellency,” he exclaimed. “I am profoundly humiliated, I shall never get over it!”
XIX
The warm weather has come with a burst in this last week of April. We have torn ourselves away from Villino Loki to London pavements. The Floribunda trees are covered with red buds. We expect a glory when we return. Loki’s Great Aunt has presented his family with twenty-five shillings worth of purple Aubretia, with which ‹much to Adam’s annoyance› we have decided to carpet the blue border. The Blue Border, we think, is under some evil bewitchment. Our late gardener assured us that no “human gardener” could find room for another plant. Yet it was the only border in the garden that “came up bald,” if one can use such an expression. Perhaps we had too much initiative and he too little; a combination bound to result in failure sometimes, if it is accompanied on one side by plunging ignorance, and on the other by “slowness of intellect, Birdie, my dear.”
* * * * *
To come back to one’s garden in April after ten days of strenuous London is a wonderful little experience for people who care for the pure joys of the young green and the spring flowers.—There is an indescribable panorama of woodland beauty on the hills opposite Villino Loki. A great marching regiment of pines, straggling upwards, emphasize the tints of birch and larch—tints which no pen, hardly any brush, could portray. The very sunlight seems caught and sent forth again from the pale yet vivid sheen. The White Broom is pearled with bud; in a few days it will burst into bloom and toss plumes as of some fantastic, fairy knighthood above the yew hedges that enclose the Dutch Garden.
* * * * *
The dogs’ welcome to their lost masters and to Loki ‹who, of course, always accompanies his family wherever it goes› is very genuine, and rather obstreperous. Bettine runs in and out of the room, up and down the furniture, as if in joyful pursuit of imaginary rats. Arabella, fond and foolish as ever, tries to crawl into everybody’s lap. Being about the size of a young calf, these blandishments are not encouraged. Loki, little Fur-man, as we call him, has a different way of expressing his feelings. True, he runs about and yelps rapture to the other dogs; but he sobs and cries like a child on reunion with any of his own, and half swoons with rapture in our arms. Sometimes it seems as if the love in his heart were too big for his little flame-coloured body, and must burst it in the endeavour to express his joy!
[Sidenote: MISUNDERSTOOD CANDOUR]
Loki is always very bumptious and pleased with himself in London—being Only-dog there—but he cannot bear visitors beyond a certain limit. Friends who come to tea are very much touched and charmed at the sight of the “dear little dog” going from one to the other, sitting up and waving his paws with frantically imploring gesture.