Chapter 7

"What is it now?" he grumbled.

"Are there no daffodils to take the winds of March with beauty?"

"There's these eleven croc--"

"But there should be daffodils too. Is not this March?"

"It may be March, but 'tisn't the time for daffodils--not on three shillings a week."

"Do you only get three shillings a week? I thought it was three shillings an hour."

"Likely an hour!"

"Ah well, I knew it was three shillings. Do you know, James, in the Scilly Islands there are fields and fields and fields of nodding daffodils out now."

"Lor'!" said James.

"Did you say 'lor'' or 'liar'?" I asked suspiciously.

"To think of that now," said James cautiously.

He wandered off to the tapioca grove, leant against it in thought for a moment, and came back to me.

"What's wrong with this little bit of garden--this here park," he began, "is the soil. It's no soil for daffodils. Now what daffodils like is clay."

"Then for Heaven's sake get them some clay. Spare no expense. Get them anything they fancy."

"It's too alloovial--that's what's the matter. Too alloovial. Now, crocuses like a bit of alloovial. That's where you have it."

The matter with James is that he hasn't enough work to do. The rest of the staff is so busily employed that it is hardly ever visible. William, for instance, is occupied entirely with what I might call the poultry; it is his duty, in fact, to see that there are always enough ants' eggs for the goldfish. All these prize Leghorns you hear about are the merest novices compared with William's protegees. Then John looks after the staggery; Henry works the coloured fountain; and Peter paints the peacocks' tails. This keeps them all busy, but James is for ever hanging about.

"Almost seems as if they were yooman," he said, as we stood and listened to the rooks.

"Oh, are you there, James? It's a beautiful day. Who said that first? I believe you did."

"Them there rooks always make a place seem so home-like. Rooks and crocuses, I say--and you don't want anything more."

"Yes; well, if the rooks want to build in the raspberry canes this year, let them, James. Don't be inhospitable."

"Course, some do like to see primroses, I don't say. But--"

"Primroses--I knew there was something. Where are they?"

"It's too early for them," said James hastily. "You won't get primroses now before April."

"Don't say 'now,' as if it were my fault. Why didn't you plant them earlier? I don't believe you know any of the tricks of your profession, James. You never seem to graft anything or prune anything, and I'm sure you don't know how to cut a slip. James, why don't you prune more? Prune now--I should like to watch you. Where's your pruning-hook? You can't possibly do it with a rake."

James spends most of his day with a rake--sometimes leaning on it, sometimes working with it. The beds are always beautifully kept. Only the most hardy annual would dare to poke its head up and spoil the smooth appearance of the soil. For those who like circles and rectangles of unrelieved brown, James is undoubtedly the man.

As I stood in the sun I had a brilliant idea.

"James," I said, "we'll cut the croquet lawn this afternoon."

"You can't play croquet to-day, it's not warm enough."

"I don't pay you to argue, but to obey. At the same time I should like to point out that I never said I was going to play croquet. I said that we, meaning you, would cut the lawn."

"What's the good of that?"

"Why, to encourage the wonderful day, of course. Where is your gratitude, man? Don't you want to do something to help? How can we let a day like this go past without some word of welcome? Out with the mower, and let us hail the passing of winter."

James looked at me in disgust.

"Gratitude!" he said indignantly to Heaven. "And there's my eleven crocuses in the front all a-singing together like anything on three bob a week!"

THE ORDEAL BY FIRE

Our Flame-flower, the Family Flame-flower, is now plainly established in the north-east corner of the pergola, and flourishes exceedingly. There, or thereabouts, it will remain through the generations to come--a cascade of glory to the eye, a fountain of pride to the soul. "Our fathers' fathers," the unborn will say of us, "performed this thing; they toiled and suffered that we might front the world with confidence--a family secure in the knowledge that it has been tried by fire and not found wanting...."

The Atherley's flame-flower, I am glad to inform you, is dead.

. . . . . . .

We started the work five years ago. I was young and ignorant then--I did not understand. One day they led me to an old apple tree and showed me, fenced in at its foot, two twigs and a hint of leaf. "The flame-flower!" they said, with awe in their voices. I was very young; I said that I didn't think much of it. It was from that moment that my education began....

Everybody who came to see us had to be shown the flame-flower. Visitors were conducted to the apple tree in solemn procession, and presented. They peered over the fence and said, "A-ah!" just as if they knew all about it. Perhaps some of them did. Perhaps some of them had tried to grow it in their own gardens.

As November came on and the air grew cold, the question whether the flame-flower should winter abroad became insistent. After much thought it was moved to the shrubbery on the southern side of the house, where it leant against a laburnum until April. With the spring it returned home, seemingly stronger for the change; but the thought of winter was too much for it, and in October it was ordered south again.

For the next three years it was constantly trying different climates and testing various diets. Though it was touch and go with it all this time our faith was strong, our courage unshaken. June, 1908, found it in the gravel-pit. It seemed our only hope....

And in the August of that year I went and stayed with the Atherleys.

. . . . . .

One morning at breakfast I challenged Miss Atherley to an immediate game of tennis.

"Not directly after," said Mrs Atherley, "it's so bad for you. Besides, we must just plant our flame-flower first."

I dropped my knife and fork and gazed at her open-mouthed.

"Plant your--WHAT?" I managed to say at last.

"Flame-flower. Do you know it? John brought one down last night--it looks so pretty growing up anything."

"It won't take a moment," said Miss Atherley, "and then I'll beat you."

"But--but you mustn't--you--you mustn't talk like THAT about it," I stammered." Th-that's not the way to talk about a flame-flower."

"Why, what's wrong?"

"You're just going to plant it! Before you play tennis! It isn't a--a BUTTERCUP! You can't do it like that."

"Oh, but do give us any hints--we shall be only too grateful."

"Hints! Just going to plant it!" I repeated, getting more and more indignant. "I--I suppose Sir Christopher Wren s-said to his wife at breakfast one morning, 'I've just got to design St Paul's Cathedral, dear, and then I'll come and play tennis with you. If you can give me any hints--'"

"Is it really so difficult?" asked Mrs Atherley. "We've seen lots of it in Scotland."

"In Scotland, yes. Not in the South of England." I paused, and then added, "WE have one."

"What soil is yours? Do you plant it very deep? Do they like a lot of water?" These and other technical points were put to me at once.

"Those are mere details of horticulture," I said. "What I am protesting against is the whole spirit in which you approach the business--the light-hearted way in which you assume that you can support a flame-flower. You have to be a very superior family indeed to have a flame-flower growing in your garden."

They laughed. They thought I was joking.

"Well, we're going to plant it now, anyhow," said Miss Atherley. "Come along and help us."

We went out, six of us, Mrs Atherley carrying the precious thing; and we gathered round an old tree trunk in front of the house.

"It would look rather pretty here," said Mrs Atherley. "Don't you think?"

I gave a great groan.

"You--you--you're all wrong again," I said in despair. "You don't put a flame-flower in a place where you think it will look pretty; you try in all humility to find a favoured spot where it will be pleased to grow. There may be such a spot in your garden or there may not. Until I know you better I cannot say. But it is extremely unlikely to be here, right in front of the window."

They laughed again, and began to dig up the ground. I turned my back in horror; I could not watch. And at the last moment some qualms of doubt seized even them. They spoke to me almost humbly.

"How would YOU plant it?" they asked.

It was my last chance of making them realize their responsibility.

"I cannot say at this moment," I began, "exactly how the ceremony should be performed, but I should endeavour to think of something in keeping with the solemnity of the occasion. It may be that Mrs Atherley and I would take the flower and march in procession round the fountain, singing a suitable chant, while Bob and Archie with shaven heads prostrated themselves before the sundial. Miss Atherley might possibly dance the Fire-dance upon the east lawn, while Mr Atherley stood upon one foot in the middle of the herbaceous border and played upon her with the garden hose. These or other symbolic rites we should perform, before we planted it in a place chosen by Chance. Then leaving a saucer of new milk for it lest it should thirst in the night we would go away, and spend the rest of the week in meditation."

I paused for breath.

"That might do it," I added, "or it might not. But at least that is the sort of spirit that you want to show."

Once more they laughed ... and then they planted it.

. . . . . . . .

These have been two difficult years for me. There have been times when I have almost lost faith, and not even the glories of our own flame-flower could cheer me. But at last the news came. I was at home for the week-end and, after rather a tiring day showing visitors the north-east end of the pergola, I went indoors for a rest. On the table there was a letter for me. It was from Mrs Atherley.

"BY THE WAY," she wrote, "THE FLAME-FLOWER IS DEAD."

"By the way"!

But even if they had taken the business seriously, even if they had understood fully what a great thing it was they were attempting--even then I think they would have failed.

For, though I like the Atherleys very much, though I think them all extremely jolly ... yet--I doubt, you know, if they are QUITE the family to have a flame-flower growing in their garden.

THE LUCKY MONTH

"KNOW thyself," said the old Greek motto. (In Greek--but this is an English book.) So I bought a little red volume called, tersely enough, WERE YOU BORN IN JANUARY? I was; and, reassured on this point, the author told me all about myself.

For the most part he told me nothing new. "You are," he said in effect, "good-tempered, courageous, ambitious, loyal, quick to resent wrong, an excellent raconteur, and a leader of men." True. "Generous to a fault"--(Yes, I was overdoing that rather)--"you have a ready sympathy with the distressed. People born in this month will always keep their promises." And so on. There was no doubt that the author had the idea all right. Even when he went on to warn me of my weaknesses he maintained the correct note. "People born in January," he said, "must be on their guard against working too strenuously. Their extraordinarily active brains--" Well, you see what he means. It IS a fault perhaps, and I shall be more careful in future. Mind, I do not take offence with him for calling my attention to it. In fact, my only objection to the book is its surface application to ALL the people who were born in January. There should have been more distinction made between me and the rabble.

I have said that he told me little that was new. In one matter, however, he did open my eyes. He introduced me to an aspect of myself entirely unsuspected.

"They," he said-meaning me, "have unusual business capacity, and are destined to be leaders in great commerical enterprises."

One gets at times these flashes of self-revelation. In an instant I realized how wasted my life had been; in an instant I resolved that here and now I would put my great gifts to their proper uses. I would be a leader in an immense commercial enterprise.

One cannot start commercial enterprises without capital. The first thing was to determine the exact nature of my balance at the bank. This was a matter for the bank to arrange, and I drove there rapidly.

"Good-morning," I said to the cashier, "I am in rather a hurry. May I have my pass-book?"

He assented and retired. After an interminable wait, during which many psychological moments for commercial enterprise must have lapsed, he returned.

"I think YOU have it," he said shortly.

"Thank you," I replied, and drove rapidly home again.

A lengthy search followed; but after an hour of it one of those white-hot flashes of thought, such as only occur to the natural business genius, seared my mind and sent me post-haste to the bank again.

"After all," I said to the cashier, "I only want to know my balance. What is it?"

He withdrew and gave himself up to calculation. I paced the floor impatiently. Opportunities were slipping by. At last he pushed a slip of paper across at me. My balance!

It was in four figures. Unfortunately two of them were shillings and pence. Still, there was a matter of fifty pounds odd as well, and fortunes have been built up on less.

Out in the street I had a moment's pause. Hitherto I had regarded my commercial enterprise in the bulk, as a finished monument of industry; the little niggling preliminary details had not come up for consideration. Just for a second I wondered how to begin.

Only for a second. An unsuspected talent which has long lain dormant needs, when waked, a second or so to turn round in. At the end of that time I had made up my mind. I knew exactly what I would do. I would ring up my solicitor.

"Hallo, is that you? Yes, this is me. What? Yes, awfully, thanks. How are you? Good. Look here, come and lunch with me. What? No, at once. Good-bye."

Business, particularly that sort of commercial enterprise to which I had now decided to lend my genius, can only be discussed properly over a cigar. During the meal itself my solicitor and I indulged in the ordinary small-talk of the pleasure-loving world.

"You're looking very fit," said my solicitor. "No, not fat, FIT."

"You don't think I'm looking thin?" I asked anxiously. "People are warning me that I may be overdoing it rather. They tell me that I must be seriously on my guard against brain strain."

"I suppose they think you oughtn't to strain it too suddenly," said my solicitor. Though he is now a solicitor he was once just an ordinary boy like the rest of us, and it was in those days that he acquired the habit of being rude to me, a habit he has never quite forgotten.

"What is an onyx?" I said, changing the conversation.

"Why?" asked my solicitor, with his usual business acumen.

"Well, I was practically certain that I had seen one in the Zoo, in the reptile house, but I have just learnt that it is my lucky month stone. Naturally I want to get one."

The coffee came and we settled down to commerce.

"I was just going to ask you," said my solicitor--"have you any money lying idle at the bank? Because if so--"

"Whatever else it is doing, it isn't lying idle," I protested. "I was at the bank to-day, and there were men chivying it about with shovels all the time."

"Well, how much have you got?"

"About fifty pounds."

"It ought to be more than that."

"That's what I say, but you know what banks are. Actual merit counts for nothing with them."

"Well, what did you want to do with it?"

"Exactly. That was why I rang you up. I--er--" This was really my moment, but somehow I was not quite ready to seize it. My vast commercial enterprise still lacked a few trifling details. "Er--I--well, it's like that."

"I might get you a few ground rents."

"Don't. I shouldn't know where to put them."

"But if you really have fifty pounds simply lying idle I wish you'd lend it to me for a bit. I'm confoundedly hard up."

("GENEROUS TO A FAULT, YOU HAVE A READY SYMPATHY WITH THE DISTRESSED." Dash it, what could I do?)

"Is it quite etiquette for clients to lend solicitors money?" I asked. "I thought it was always solicitors who had to lend it to clients. If I must, I'd rather lend it to you--I mean, I'd dislike it less--as to the old friend of my childhood."

"Yes, that's how I wanted to pay it back."

"Bother. Then I'll send you a cheque to-night," I sighed.

And that's where we are at the moment. "PEOPLE BORN IN THIS MONTH ALWAYS KEEP THEIR PROMISES." The money has got to go to-night. If I hadn't been born in January I shouldn't be sending it; I certainly shouldn't have promised it; I shouldn't even have known that I had it. Sometimes I almost wish that I had been born in one of the decent months. March, say.

A SUMMER COLD

WHEN I am not feeling very well I go to Beatrice for sympathy and advice. Anyhow I get the advice.

"I think," I said carelessly, wishing to break it to her as gently as possible, "I think I have hay-fever."

"Nonsense," said Beatrice.

That annoyed me. Why shouldn't I have hay-fever if I wanted to?

"If you're going to begrudge me every little thing," I began.

"You haven't even got a cold."

As luck would have it a sneeze chose that moment for its arrival.

"There!" I said triumphantly.

"Why, my dear boy, if you had hay-fever you'd be sneezing all day."

"That was only a sample. There are lots more where that came from."

"Don't be so silly. Fancy starting hay-fever in September."

"I'm not starting it. I am, I earnestly hope, just finishing it. If you want to know, I've had a cold all the summer."

"Well, I haven't noticed it."

"That's because I'm such a good actor. I've been playing the part of a man who hasn't had a cold all the summer. My performance is considered to be most life-like."

Beatrice disdained to answer, and by and by I sneezed again.

"You certainly have a cold," she said, putting down her work.

"Come, this is something."

"You must be careful. How did you catch it?"

"I didn't catch it. It caught me."

"Last week-end?"

"No, last May."

Beatrice picked up her work again impatiently. I sneezed a third time.

"Is this more the sort of thing you want?" I said.

"What I say is that you couldn't have had hay-fever all the summer without people knowing."

"But, my dear Beatrice, people do know. In this quiet little suburb you are rather out of the way of the busy world. Rumours of war, depressions on the Stock Exchange, my hay-fever--these things pass you by. But the clubs are full of it. I assure you that, all over the country, England's stately homes have been plunged into mourning by the news of my sufferings, historic piles have bowed their heads and wept."

"I suppose you mean that in every house you've been to this summer you've told them that you had it, and they've been foolish enough to believe you."

"That's putting it a little crudely. What happens is--"

"Well, all I can say is, you know a very silly lot of people."

"What happens is that when the mahogany has been cleared of its polished silver and choice napery, and wine of a rare old vintage is circulating from hand to hand--"

"If they wanted to take any notice of you at all, they could have given you a bread poultice and sent you to bed."

"Then, as we impatiently bite the ends off our priceless Havanas--"

"They might know that you couldn't possibly have hay-fever."

I sat up suddenly and spoke to Beatrice.

"Why on earth SHOULDN'T I have hay-fever?" I demanded. "Have you any idea what hay-fever is? I suppose you think I ought to be running about wildly, trying to eat hay--or yapping and showing an unaccountable aversion from dried grass? I take it that there are grades of hay-fever, as there are of everything else. I have it at present in a mild form. Instead of being thankful that it is no worse, you--"

"My dear boy, hay-fever is a thing people have all their lives, and it comes on every summer. You've never even pretended to have it before this year."

"Yes, but you must start SOME time. I'm a little backward, perhaps. Just because there are a few infant prodigies about, don't despise me. In a year or two I shall be as regular as the rest of them." And I sneezed again.

Beatrice got up with an air of decision and left the room. For a moment I thought she was angry and had gone for a policeman, but as the minutes went by and she didn't return I began to fear that she might have left the house for good. I was wondering how I should break the news to her husband when, to my relief, she came in again.

"You may be right," she said, putting down a small package and unpinning her hat. "Try this. The chemist says it's the best hay-fever cure there is."

"It's in a lot of languages," I said as I took the wrapper off. "I suppose German hay is the same as any other sort of hay? Oh, here it is in English. I say, this is a what-d'-you-call-it cure."

"So the man said."

"Homeopathic. It's made from the pollen that causes hay-fever. Yes. Ah, yes." I coughed slightly and looked at Beatrice out of the corner of my eye. "I suppose," I said carelessly, "if anybody took this who HADN'T got hay-fever, the results might be rather--I mean that he might then find that he-in fact, er--HAD got it."

"Sure to," said Beatrice.

"Yes. That makes us a little thoughtful; we don't want to over-do this thing." I went on reading the instructions. "You know, it's rather odd about my hay-fever--it's generally worse in town than in the country."

"But then you started so late, dear. You haven't really got into the swing of it yet."

"Yes, but still--you know, I have my doubts about the gentleman who invented this. We don't see eye to eye in this matter. Beatrice, you may be right--perhaps I haven't got hay-fever."

"Oh, don't give up."

"But all the same I know I've got something. It's a funny thing about my being worse in town than in the country. That looks rather as if--By Jove, I know what it is--I've got just the opposite of hay-fever."

"What is the opposite of hay?"

"Why, bricks and things."

I gave a last sneeze and began to wrap up the cure.

"Take this pollen stuff back," I said to Beatrice, "and ask the man if he's got anything homoeopathic made from paving-stones. Because, you know, that's what I really want."

"You HAVE got a cold," said Beatrice.

A MODERN CINDERELLA

ONCE upon a time there was a beautiful girl who lived in a mansion in Park Lane with her mother and her two sisters and a crowd of servants. Cinderella, for that was her name, would have dearly loved to have employed herself about the house sometimes; but whenever she did anything useful, like arranging the flowers or giving the pug a bath, her mother used to say, "Cinderella! What DO you think I engage servants for? Please don't make yourself so common."

Cinderella's two sisters were much older and plainer than herself, and their mother had almost given up hope about them, but she used to drag Cinderella to balls and dances night after night, taking care that only the right sort of person was introduced to her. There were many nights when Cinderella would have preferred a book at home in front of the fire, for she soon found that her partners' ideas of waltzing were as catholic as their conversation was limited. It was, indeed, this fondness for the inglenook that had earned her the name of Cinderella.

One day, when she was in the middle of a delightful story, her mother came in suddenly and cried:

"Cinderella! Why aren't you resting, as I told you? You know we are going to the Hogbins' to-night."

"Oh, mother," pleaded Cinderella, "NEED I go to the dance?"

"Don't be so absurd! Of course you're going!"

"But I've got nothing to wear."