Part 4

But whatever the flowers, it is our custom to welcome all guests with rosemary, for I have discovered that the scent of it (even the sight of it) is a certain cure for the divers maladies caused by overdoses of unsatisfactory dressmakers, cooks who give notice every month, much boredom in crowded unventilated drawing-rooms, and all the many varieties of restlessness that have been invented to help women to kill time. It has also been known to prove efficacious in cases of people prone to overwork.

At any rate, if you come to visit me you will find a vase with sprigs of rosemary on the deep window-ledge in your room; and few of my friends go away without taking a slip from the gnarled bush by the door to plant in less congenial surroundings.

I believe Shakespeare said that rosemary typifies remembrance; Virginia unblushingly improves on Shakespeare by insisting that it means the remembrance of peace.

IV

Miss Quirker—Incidentally

EVERY visit to the cottage seems prefaced with a scramble. Either the work at the office suddenly does itself up in a tangle, or the domestic arrangements show signs of incipient paralysis, which it takes all my available energy to avert, or else it is people who inflict themselves upon me when I’m at my final gasp without a moment, or a single company smile, to spare for anybody. And of all the three forms of irritation, the uninvited people are the worst; for they always seem to absorb the last bit of vitality left me, which I had hoped would just carry me over the journey.

There is Miss Quirker, for instance. You don’t know Miss Quirker? How I envy you!

I can best describe her as a lady well over forty (or more), who apparently hasn’t anything at all to do, and who does it thoroughly well. She has a couple of very decided and conspicuous gifts—one is the ability to waste the time and dissipate the amiable qualities of every individual whose path she crosses; and the other is a positive genius for saying the wrong thing.

I was near the window writing for all I was worth, when she knocked at the door and inquired for me, adding, “I see she is busy writing, but if you tell her who it is, I know she’ll see _me_.” Of course I had to see her.

She entered the room with a kittenish little rush and scuffle, that is by no means the happiest form of affectation for a tall, largely-built woman, well over forty (or more).

“Ah! I’ve found you in at last” (with a roguish wag of a stiff finger in a size too small glove). “I was determined to see you, dear, though Abigail always looks so forbidding at the door. I met Miss Virginia shopping just now, and I asked if you were at home. She said you were _frightfully_ busy, nearly off your head with work, as you were leaving town the first thing in the morning. So I said at once: Then of course I must go round and call on her this very afternoon.

“She said she wasn’t sure that you’d be in if I did, but I said I should chance it—it’s such an age since we’ve met—why, not since your engagement was announced! Now, just give me an account of yourself, and tell me all about everything.

“I would have asked Miss Virginia, but I never think she is at all cordial, or perhaps I should say—sympathetic. Indeed, I don’t think she really knew me at first. I was right in her path, yet she seemed to look through me! But I took a seat next to her at the lace counter, and spoke to her. By the way, is she deaf? It was so strange that she didn’t seem to hear a quarter of the questions I asked her about you, so I really got next to _no_ information from her. It was so funny sometimes that I almost laughed—I’ve _such_ a sense of humour, you know. For instance, when I asked her what she thought of your _fiancé_ (you know you’ve never introduced me to him yet!) and was it her idea of a suitable match, and was he tall or short, she replied: ‘I think it wonderful value considering, and it should wear well; the size is five yards round, so I had better have six yards to allow for corners.’ And, do you know, I was some minutes before I realised that she wasn’t talking about his waist measure, but an afternoon tea-cloth for which she was buying the lace. She evidently hadn’t heard a word I had said. And so I raised my voice and asked her what part he had come from, as I knew he didn’t go to _our_ church. She just looked at me and replied: ‘Cluny; I always think Cluny lace washes so well, don’t you?’

“You see, I got absolutely _nothing_ out of her. In fact, I wondered, dear, whether—of course, I know you don’t mind me speaking quite frankly—whether there had been any little rift—er—you understand; of course I know you’ve a wonderful fund of patience, only those two girls always seem to be with you, and though I’m sure you wouldn’t tell them so, yet anyone with the very _slightest_ tact might see that they aren’t wanted. And of course....

“Oh, well, I’m glad to hear you _do_ think as much of them as ever. I shouldn’t have thought it; but you needn’t mind telling _me_ if there _had_ been a little coolness. I’m fairly sharp at seeing through a stone wall. And I always have said that—personally, mind you—I never knew two girls less....

“Of course, we won’t discuss them if you’d rather not. As you know, I am the very last one to want to introduce a disagreeable topic. We’ll talk about you. Turn round to the light, and let me see how you are looking. My _dear_! but you do look ill!! I don’t know _when_ I’ve seen you look so utterly washed out and anæmic....

“You never felt better in your life? Well, I’m glad to hear it, I’m sure. Oh, I see what it is, it’s that blue dress you are wearing that gives you that aged and sallow look—a very trying colour, isn’t it? I don’t think anyone ought to wear that colour, but those with very clear young-looking complexions, and then it looks charming. It always suited me. By the way, did Madame Delphine make that dress?... I thought so, I knew it the minute I saw you. It’s a queer thing, but I have never yet seen anyone look even passable in a dress that she has made. You can’t exactly say that it doesn’t fit, can you? It’s a something—I don’t know how to express it—about her gowns that always strikes me as—well, you know what I mean, don’t you? And that dress you’ve got on looks just like that! I know you won’t mind _me_ speaking quite plainly; you see, I’ve known you for so long, and I’m not one to flatter, I never was. What we need in this world is absolute sincerity; don’t you agree with me? And I always think it’s the kindest thing when you see a friend in anything that makes her look plainer than ever, to tell her so at once, then she knows just exactly what she looks like. And, after all, other people are the best judges as to what suits us. We can’t see ourselves. Mrs. Ridley was saying at the Guild ‘At Home’ at the Archdeacon’s the other day, she thought you were so wise to stick to that way you do your hair; she said she thought it suited you, considering that....”

Here I did manage to interpolate a sarcastic regret that they couldn’t find a more interesting topic of conversation!

“Oh, yes, we _had_ other more interesting things to talk about, dear, but Mrs. Archdeacon had your photo on the table, and the Archdeacon said something about you, I forget what—nothing of any importance—and that was the only reason we mentioned you. I said I thought perhaps you did it that way because it was a little thin just there.... Oh, I know you used to have a lot of hair, dear; but some people’s hair _does_ come out, and a pad doesn’t look so well anywhere else....

“It’s all your own hair? You don’t wear—— Well, I _am_ surprised! I should _never_ have thought it!! I don’t mean that it looks much in any case, but I always concluded that you wore——

“Oh, how delightful! I’ll confess I was longing for a cup of tea.... Yes, three lumps and plenty of milk. I always say it makes up for any deficiencies in the tea, if one has lots of milk.... China tea, is it? I thought so. I dare say it’s all right for those who like it. And, of course, if you tell people what it is, they understand why it _looks_ so poor....

“On _no_ account; don’t _think_ of having some Indian tea made specially for me. I can quite well make this do, because I’m going straight home after I leave you, and tea will be waiting for me, and I shall have a _good_ cup first thing....

“Yes, I think I will have another sandwich, even though it is the third time of asking. These make me think of the Guild ‘At Home’ last week. You ought to have been there. The Archdeacon makes such a delightful host _and_ the sandwiches!—well, I can’t _tell_ you what they were like; literally hundreds and hundreds of them, and such delicious filling; all cut in their own kitchen, too. You really should get Mrs. Archdeacon to tell you what her cook put in them; you’d never touch one of these ordinary ones again, once you had tasted hers.

“But what I _would_ like to know is, what does she do with all the crusts? Mrs. Ridley thought that perhaps they made them up into savoury puddings; only, as I said to her: How about those with fish in them? She said that perhaps they kept them separate when cutting; but I know the shuffling ways of cooks better than that! I never kept one, and I never will....

“I must certainly try the cake if you made it yourself. I seldom get time to do any cooking myself, though I’m a very good hand at cakes. But you’ve secretaries to take everything off your hands; you must have lots of spare time.”

(A moment’s pause while she tries the cake.)

“Have you ever used the Busy Bee Flour Sifter? No? Then I should strongly advise you to get one. I should think _that_ might help you to make a lighter cake; or do you think you put in enough baking powder? But there, some people have a light hand with cakes, and some haven’t. I don’t think anything makes any difference if you haven’t. It’s just like plants, isn’t it—they always grow well for those who love them. _Your_ ferns aren’t looking very bright, are they?...

“Oh, don’t you like the ends of the fronds rubbed?... I see, they were given you by your _fiancé_, and naturally they are the apple of your eye. That reminds me, you haven’t shown me his portrait yet. I’m longing to see it....

“Is _that_ the gentleman! Well! he’s the very last man in the world I should have chosen for you! Not a bit like what I pictured....

“No, I don’t mean that there’s anything _wrong_ with him, only—er—he doesn’t look a scrap like the man _you_ would become engaged to....

“Well, I don’t know that I can exactly describe the type of man I expected. I thought he would be tall and——

“He is? Over six feet? Well, he doesn’t look it from his photo, does he?...

“That’s true; a vignetted head doesn’t show the full height. But apart from that, I expected an artistic sort of man....

“He is? Really! And then I should have pictured him rather—er—well, Napoleonic, and with that far-away poetic fire in his eyes that carries you off your feet to untold heights....

“No, of course I don’t mean an aviator! I mean a—but it isn’t easy to put it into words; only you can’t think how disap—how surprised I am to see a little man....

“Of course, I remember you did say he was tall and well made. But there, handsome is as handsome does; and, after all, I’ve heard that it is often the plainest and most uninteresting-looking men that turn out the best in the end. I can only hope that it will be so in your——

“Why, I declare! Here’s Miss Virginia! How d’y’do? We’ve been talking about you all the afternoon. Well, I really _must_ be going, and I simply won’t listen to any of your persuasions to stay longer. I’ve brightened her up nicely, Miss Virginia; she was looking ever so gloomy when I called. Good-bye, dear. _Good_-bye, Miss Virginia.”

_Exit Miss Quirker._

What we said after she had gone had better not be recorded! My own remarks may not have been _quite_ cordial; but I know that Virginia’s were even worse—if that were possible.

* * * * *

But though visitations such as these, when bestowed upon me at the eleventh hour, always reduce me mentally to a sort of bran-mash (and Virginia says she can’t see why anybody need bother a government to _import_ pulp nowadays, considering the state of her brain, to say nothing of those of other people who shall be nameless), the sight of the garden makes me human once more, and by sunset the silence of the hills has so restored my soul, that the sun seldom, if ever, goes down upon my wrath.

After tea, there will probably be two hours of daylight for watering the garden. Even though the sun has dropped behind the opposite hills, it is light up here on the hill-top long after the valley has gone to sleep; and when the sun has really set, there is a long and lovely twilight.

Indoors and out there is absolute peace. The grandfather’s clock ticks with that slow deliberation that is so soothing; even the preliminary rumble it gives before striking is never irritating—you feel it is a concession due to advanced age.

Through the open window float in the scents of thousands of flowers that are feeling unspeakably grateful for the liberal watering the girls have been giving them; you cannot distinguish any one in particular; one moment you think it is the sweet briar, then you are sure it is the white lilies, then the breeze brings the breath of the honeysuckles that are climbing trees and hedges, till the whole air is laden with perfume.

Up the garden white dresses are seen among the borders.

“There, I believe we’ve done everything but that upper bed of hollyhocks, and they won’t hurt for to-night.” Virginia sounds as though she had been working hard.

“Now the tent,” calls out Ursula. And we all make a stampede to the bottom of the lower orchard, and with a few dexterous turns the tent is down and folded up; for though the trees may be motionless now, the wind springs up at any moment on these hills, and once you hear it soughing in the tops of the big fir-trees in the garden you will realise the advantage of having the tent indoors!

As you saunter up the garden, back to the house, crushing the sweet-odoured black peppermint in the grass underfoot, the stars seem very near. The cottage looks like a toy, with the light shining from each little window. And as you cross the threshold into the living-room, the log fire flashes and gleams (a fire is acceptable up here after sundown, even in the summer), and everything smiles with such a cosy welcome, till brass candlesticks and cups and jugs and the homely willow patterns on the dresser, all seem to say, “We are so glad you’ve come.”

V

The Geography of the Flower-Patch

THE first night at this cottage you may lie awake, if you are a stranger to these hills, almost awed by the silence. Gradually you realise that the silence is not actual absence of sound. In May and early June the nightingales trill in the trees around; or you will hear the owls calling to one another in the woods—a trifle weird if you do not know what it is. At another time it is the corn-crake; or the wind brings you the bleating of lambs down in the valley. As you listen longer, you hear the tinkle, tinkle of the little spring that tumbles out of a small spout into a ferny well outside the garden gate.

You take a final look out of the window to where, miles away in the distance, a lighthouse flashes at fixed intervals. It seems strangely companionable, even though it is so far off. And then you close your eyes—unconscious that you have fallen asleep—only to open them again in a minute, as you think. Someone is speaking.

You detect Ursula’s voice in a stage whisper through the keyhole.

“I say—aren’t you ever going to get up?”

You rub your eyes. It certainly is morning! And you such a poor sleeper, possibly one of those who “never had a wink of sleep all night, and such horrid dreams.” The plaintive voice continues at the keyhole:

“I planted out nine hundred and thirty-seven wallflower seedlings yesterday, and I want to cover them up with fern before the sun gets too strong. If you’ll get up you can gather the bracken, while I creep around on all fours covering them up. See? Virginia is busy thinning out the turnips. And SHE is never any good at getting up early, you know!”

I regret to say this last scornful reference is to me!

* * * * *

And now when you look out of the little bedroom window again, to the accompaniment of an early cup of tea, what a change has taken place since yesterday! Last night the ranges of opposite hills, with the sun setting behind them, looked vague and mysterious with shadows. This morning the sun is full on them, but now there is another mystery—or so it seems to those who see it for the first time.

Instead of looking down into the green tree-clad valley to where the river winds along at the base of the steep hills, you now look down on to a bank of solid white—the mist that rises up at night and fills the lower part of the valley, reminding one of the mist that went up from the earth in the first Garden, “and watered the whole face of the ground.”

With the sun on it, the mist gives back a dazzling light. And then slowly, slowly, the whole white bank in the valley lifts silently and wonderfully; up and up it goes in a solid mass, and as the higher parts of the hills, which were previously in sunshine, are temporarily hidden by the uprising mass, so the lower part of the valley gradually becomes visible, first only a strip at the very bottom, then more and more as the white curtain is raised. Finally the white mass disappears and joins its fellows in the sky above, a fragment of cloud lingering sometimes a little below the summit of the highest hill. If the day is going to be fine, this last trail of silvery cloud disappears, and then the sun lights up the woods and the upland meadows, showing you distant cottages and far-off farmhouses where you saw nothing but tremulous shadows the night before.

However often one looks upon this sight, the marvel never lessens, and the “simple scientific explanation,” which every learned person who visits this cottage pours over the breakfast-table, is quite unnecessary. Scientific explanations are admirable for cities, but when we set foot on these hills, it is just sufficient for us that Nature “is.”

* * * * *

One drawback about this cottage is the fact that one’s poetic thoughts and soulful dreams are constantly being interrupted by things material, more especially those appertaining to food! And even as you are gazing out of the window at the glorious scenery all around you, there arises the odour of frizzling ham (that originally ran about, uncooked, in a field lower down), fried potatoes (the good old-fashioned sort done in the frying-pan), coffee, and other hungry things; and you find to your surprise that a substantial breakfast is on the table by eight o’clock, though (and this is where guests bless their hostess) no one need get up to breakfast, if they prefer to have it in bed, for very tired people come here sometimes.

But it does not matter what nervous wrecks Virginia and Ursula may have landed at the door overnight, the first morning sees them up with the lark and out gardening; and one of the earliest sounds you hear is the clink of the brown pitcher on the stones, as Virginia sets it down after filling it at the little spring outside the garden gate. This is a thirsty garden; it is everywhere on the slope, remember, and is composed of the lightest soil imaginable with rock everywhere beneath. As fast as you put water on it, it runs away downhill; hence, a moment’s leisure, morning or evening, always means some pitchers of water for the garden.

All the cottages on the hillside seem to have been built in the same way. Someone evidently hunted about for a few feet of land where it was slightly less sloping than the rest, and within reach of a spring of water, and this plot he levelled a bit by excavating the big boulders and smaller stones which make up our substratum, and often the top-stratum too. Then if the piece of land wasn’t quite large enough, he cut away part of the hill behind, banking it up with some of the biggest of the boulders, to keep it from tumbling down on to the piece he had cleared.

Next he excavated more rocky pieces from the up-and-down land around his clearing; this gave him a bit of clean ground for a garden, and also provided him with enough stone to build his habitation. Any stone he might have over he made into a wall around his plot, by the simple process of piling one piece on top of another. That, apparently, is all man does to the place. Then Nature sets to work; and, oh, what festoons of loveliness she flings over all!

As several different owners have had a hand at my particular cottage, the garden has been extended in various directions, but always requiring stone walls to prop it up. Hence you get a moderately level patch, with a drop of four or six feet over the edge of the garden-bed.

A few rough stone steps take you down to the next level, where there is another bit of garden, the steps themselves sprouting in every chink, with wild strawberry, primroses, ferns, columbines, and a stray Canterbury bell. In this way the cottage is surrounded with steps going up or going down, with a flower-bed running along here, and some more a few feet lower down; another terrace of flowers and some more steps (nearly smothered with big periwinkle, these are) take you down to an absurd lawn, that some enterprising person levelled up so delightfully on the tilt that neither chair nor table will remain where you place it! If they roll far enough, they go over the edge of the lawn, a drop of about twenty feet, into the lower orchard! Nevertheless, this lawn is popular, because it is edged at one side with white and pink moss rose-trees.

Thus perhaps you can picture it—big beds and little beds, some running one way, some spreading out in another direction; sometimes large patches where flowers grow by the quarter-acre; sometimes little scraps and corners no bigger than a hearth-rug, where we managed to dig out some more stones, and make a further bit of clearing. But everywhere you go there are the big plateaux or little terraces supported by massive grey stone walls, which vary from two to twenty feet in height, according to the amount of hillside they are required to prop up.

And how these walls bloom! Ivy and moss and ferns seem to love them, for all the local walls sprout ferns without any apparent provocation, and the walls about this garden are no exception.

But, in addition, white arabis hangs over in cascades, in the spring, and you see then why the country people call it “Snow-on-the-Mountains”; and mingling with the white is the exquisite mauve variety; wallflowers of lovely colouring, rose pink, deep purple, pale primrose, bright orange, as well as the richly-streaked brown-and-yellow flowers, bloom gaily on the rocky ledges; snapdragons flower later, with nasturtiums, and even some blue-eyed forget-me-nots have sown themselves up there, and bloom with the rest. Honesty plants have established themselves in the crevices; masses of wild Herb Robert have been allowed to remain; and carpeting everything are all manner of sedums, and Alpine and ice plants, some with grey-green foliage and ruby-coloured stems, some with white flowers, some with crimson; and in the hottest places there are clumps of houseleeks looking sturdy and homely.

Certain weeks in the year the tops of some of the walls are a golden mass when the yellow stonecrop is in bloom; but whatever the season, there is always something to look at—something holding up a brave head and preaching as loudly as ever a plant can preach of the advantages of making the best of your surroundings.