The Garden, You, And I Part 19

"As she spoke she was leading the way, with that peculiar undulating progress, like a cloud blown over the earth's surface, that I had noticed at first. Then we came out from under the shade of the trees into the garden enclosure and I saw borders and beds, but chiefly borders, stretching and curving everywhere, screening all the fences, approaching the house, and when almost there retreating in graceful lines into the shelter of the trees. The growth had the luxuriance of a jungle, and yet there was nothing weedy or awry about it, and as the breeze blew toward us the combination of many odours, both pungent and sweet, was almost overpowering.

"'You very seldom wore a b.u.t.tonhole flower, but when you did it was a safrano bud or else a white jasmine,' Mrs. Marchant said, wheeling suddenly and looking at Martin with a gaze that did not stop where he stood, but went through and beyond him; 'it was Dr. Russell who always wore a pink! See! I have both here!' and going up to a tea-rose bush, grown to the size of a shrub and lightly fastened to the side of the house, she gathered a few sh.e.l.l-like buds and a moment later pulled down a spray of the jasmine vine that festooned a window, as we see it in England but never here, and carefully cut off a cl.u.s.ter of its white stars by aid of a pair of the long, slender flower-picking scissors that hung from her belt by a ribbon, twisted the stems together, and placed them in Martin's b.u.t.tonhole almost without touching it.

"Having done this, she seemed to forget us and drifted away among the flowers, touching some gently as she pa.s.sed, snipping a dead leaf here and arranging a misplaced branch there.

"We left almost immediately, but have been there many times since, and though as a whole the garden is too heavily fragrant, I thought that it might suggest possibilities to you."

As Aunt Lavinia paused we were turning from the main road into the narrow but beautifully kept lane upon which the Herb Farm, as it was still called, was located, by one of those strange freaks that sometimes induces people to build in a strangely inaccessible spot, though quite near civilization. I know that you must have come upon many such places in your wanderings.

Of course my curiosity was piqued, and I felt, besides, as if I was about to step into the page of some strange psychological romance, nor was I disappointed.

The first thing that I saw when we entered was a great strip of heliotrope that rivalled my own, and opposite it an equal ma.s.s of silvery lavender crowned by its own flowers, of the colour that we so frequently use as a term, but seldom correctly. There were no flagged or gravel walks, but closely shorn gra.s.s paths, the width of a lawn-mower, that followed the outline of the borders and made grateful footing.

Bounding the heliotrope and lavender on one side was a large bed of what I at first thought were Margaret carnations, of every colour combination known to the flower, but a closer view showed that while those in the centre were Margarets, those of the wide border were of a heavier quality both in build of plant, texture of leaf, and flower, which was like a compact greenhouse carnation, the edges of the petals being very smooth and round, while in addition to many rich, solid colours there were flowers of white-and-yellow ground, edged and striped and flaked with colour, and the fragrance delicious and reminiscent of the clove pinks of May.

Mrs. Puffin, the companion, could tell us little about them except that the seed from which they were raised came from England and that, as she put it, they were fussy, troublesome things, as those sown one season had to be lifted and wintered in the cold pit and get just so much air every day, and be planted out in the border again in April.

Aunt Lavinia recognized them as the same border carnations over which she had raved when she first saw them in the trim gardens of Hampton Court. Can either you or Evan tell me more of them and why we do not see them here? Before long I shall go garden mad, I fear; for after grooming the place into a generally decorative and floriferous condition of trees, shrubs, vines, ferns, etc., will come the hunger for specialties that if completely satisfied will necessitate not only a rosary, a lily and wild garden, a garden--rather than simply a bed--of sweet odours, and lastly a garden wholly for the family of pinks or carnations, whichever is the senior t.i.tle. I never thought of these last except as a garden incident until I saw their possibilities in Mrs. Marchant's s.p.a.ce of fragrant leaves and flowers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BED OF j.a.pAN PINKS.]

The surrounding fences were entirely concealed by lilacs and syringas, interspersed with gigantic bushes of the fragrant, brown-flowered strawberry shrub; the four gates, two toward the road, one to the barn-yard, and one entering the wood lane, were arched high and covered by vines of Wisteria, while similar arches seemed to bring certain beds together that would have looked scattered and meaningless without them.

In fact next to the presence of fragrant things, the artistic use of vines as draperies appealed to me most.

The border following the fence was divided, back of the house, by a vine-covered arbour, on the one side of which the medicinal herbs and simples were ma.s.sed; on the other what might be cla.s.sed as decorative or garden flowers, though some of the simples, such as tansy with its cl.u.s.ters of golden b.u.t.tons, must be counted decorative.

The plants were never set in straight lines, but in irregular groups that blended comfortably together. Mrs. Marchant was not feeling well, Mrs. Puffin said, and could not come out, greatly to my disappointment; but the latter was only too glad to do the honours, and the plant names slipped from her tongue with the ease of long familiarity.

This patch of low growth with small heads of purple flowers was broad-leaved English thyme; that next, summer savory, used in cooking, she said. Then followed common sage and its scarlet-flowered cousin that we know as salvia; next came rue and rosemary, Ophelia's flower of remembrance, with stiff leaves. Little known or grown, or rather capricious and tender here, I take it, for I find plants of it offered for sale in only one catalogue. Marigolds were here also, why I do not know, as I should think they belonged with the more showy flowers; then inconspicuous pennyroyal and several kinds of mints--spearmint, peppermint, and some great plants of velvet-leaved catnip.

Borage I saw for the first time, also coriander of the aromatic seeds, and a companion of dill of vinegar fame; and strangely enough, in rotation of Bible quotation, c.u.min and rue came next.

Caraway and a feathery ma.s.s of fennel took me back to grandmother's Virginia garden; balm and arnica, especially when I bruised a leaf of the latter between my fingers, recalled the bottle from which I soothe the Infant's childish b.u.mps, the odour of it being also strongly reminiscent of my own childhood.

Angelica spoke of the sweet candied stalks, but when we reached a spot of basil, Martin Cortright's tongue was loosed and he began to recite from Keats; and all at once I seemed to see Isabella sitting among the shadows holding between her knees the flower-pot from which the strangely nourished plant of basil grew as she watered it with her tears.

A hedge of tall sunflowers, from whose seeds, Mrs. Puffin said, a soothing and nourishing cough syrup may be made, antedating cod-liver oil, replaced the lilacs on this side, and with them blended boneset and h.o.r.ehound; while in a springy spot back toward the barn-yard the long leaves of sweet flag or calamus introduced a different cla.s.s of foliage.

On the garden side the border was broken every ten feet or so with great shrubs of our lemon verbena, called lemon balm by Mrs. Puffin. It seemed impossible that such large, heavily wooded plants could be lifted for winter protection in the cellar, yet such Mrs. Puffin a.s.sured us was the case. So I shall grow mine to this size if possible, for what one can do may be accomplished by another,--that is the tonic of seeing other gardens than one's own. Between the lemon verbenas were fragrant-leaved geraniums of many flavours--rose, nutmeg, lemon, and one with a sharp peppermint odour, also a skeleton-leaved variety; while a low-growing plant with oval leaves and half-trailing habit and odd odour, Mrs.

Puffin called apple geranium, though it does not seem to favour the family. Do you know it?

Bee balm in a blaze of scarlet made glowing colour amid so much green, and strangely enough the bluish lavender of the taller-growing sister, wild bergamot, seems to harmonize with it; while farther down the line grew another member of this brave family of horsemints with almost pink, irregular flowers of great beauty.

Southernwood formed fernlike ma.s.ses here and there; dwarf tansy made the edging, together with the low, yellow-flowered musk, which Aunt Lavinia, now quite up in such things, declared to be a "musk-scented mimulus!"

whatever that may be! Stocks, sweet sultan, and tall wands of evening primrose graded this border up to another shrubbery.

Of mignonette the garden boasts a half dozen species, running from one not more than six inches in height with cinnamon-red flowers to a tall variety with pointed flower spikes, something of the shape of the white flowers of the clethra bush or wands of Culver's root that grow along the fence at Opal Farm. It is not so fragrant as the common mignonette, but would be most graceful to arrange with roses or sweet peas. Aunt Lavinia says that she thinks that it is sold under the name of Miles spiral mignonette.

Close to the road, where the fence angle allows for a deep bed and the lilacs grade from the tall white of the height of trees down to the compact bushes of newer French varieties, lies the violet bed, now a ma.s.s of green leaves only, but by these Aunt Lavinia's eye read them out and found here the English sweet wild violet, as well as the deep purple double garden variety, the tiny white scented that comes with p.u.s.s.y-willows, the great single pansy violet of California, and the violets grown from the Russian steppes that carpeted the ground under your "mother tree."

From this bed the lilies-of-the-valley start and follow the entire length of the front fence, as you preach on the sunny side, the fence itself being hidden by a drapery of straw-coloured and pink Chinese honeysuckle that we called at home June honeysuckle, though this is covered with flower sprays in late August, and must be therefore a sort of monthly-minded hybrid, after the fashion of the hybrid tea-rose.

If I were to tell of the tea-roses grown here, they would fill a chronicle by itself, though only a few of the older kinds, such as safrano, bon silene, and perle, are favourites. Mrs. Puffin says that some of them, the great shrubs, are wintered out-of-doors, and others are lifted, like the lemon balms, and kept in the dry, light cellar in tubs.

But oh! Mrs. Evan, you must go and see Mrs. Marchant's lilies! They are growing as freely as weeds among the uncut gra.s.s, and blooming as profusely as the bell-lilies in Opal Farm meadows! And all the spring bulbs are also grown in this gra.s.s that lies between the shorn gra.s.s paths, and in autumn when the tops are dead and gone it is carefully burned over and the turf is all the winter covering they have.

Does the gra.s.s look ragged and unsightly? No, because I think that it is cut lightly with a scythe after the spring bulbs are gone and that the patient woman, whose life the garden is, keeps the tallest seeded gra.s.ses hand trimmed from between the lily stalks!

Ah, but how that garden lingers with me, and the single glimpse I caught of the deep dark eyes of its mistress as they looked out of a vine-clad window toward the sky!

I have made a list of the plants that are possible for my own permanent bed of fragrant flowers and leaves, that I may enjoy them, and that the Infant may have fragrant memories to surround all her youth and bind her still more closely to the things of outdoor life.

I chanced upon a verse of Bourdillon's the other day. Do you know it?

"Ah! full of purest influence On human mind and mood, Of holiest joy to human sense Are river, field, and wood; And better must all childhood be That knows a garden and a tree!"

XV

THE PINK FAMILY OUTDOORS

(Barbara Campbell to Mary Penrose)

_Oaklands, September 1._ So you have been away and in going discovered the possibilities of growing certain pinks and carnations out-of-doors that, in America at least, are usually considered the winter specialties of a cool greenhouse!

We too have been afield somewhat, having but now returned from a driving trip of ten days, nicely timed as to gardens and resting-places until the last night, when, making a false turn, ten o'clock found us we did not know where and with no prospect of getting our bearings.

We had ample provisions for supper with us, including two bottles of ginger ale; no one knew that we were lost but ourselves and no one was expecting us anywhere, as we travel quite _con amore_ on these little near-by journeys of ours. The August moon was big and hot and late in rising; there was a rick of old hay in a clean-looking field by the roadside that had evidently been used as winter fodder for young cattle, for what remained of it was nibbled about the base, leaving a protruding, umbrella-like thatch, not very substantial, but sufficient shelter for a still night. Then and there we decided to play gypsy and camp out, literally under the sky. Evan unharnessed the horse, watered him at a convenient roadside puddle, and tethered him at the rear of the stack, where he could nibble the hay, but not us! Then spreading the horse-blanket on some loose hay for a bed, with the well-tufted seat of the buggy for a pillow, and utilizing the lap robe for a cover against dew, we fell heavily asleep, though I had all the time a half-conscious feeling as if little creatures were scrambling about in the hay beneath the blanket and occasionally brushing my face or ears with a batlike wing, tiny paws, or whisking tail. When I awoke, and of course immediately stirred up Evan, the moon was low on the opposite side of the stack, the stars were hidden, and there was a dull red glow among the heavy clouds of the eastern horizon like the reflection of a distant fire, while an owl hooted close by from a tree and then flew with a lurch across the meadow, evidently to the destruction of some small creature, for a squeal accompanied the swoop. A mysterious thing, this flight of the owl: the wings did not flap, there was no sound, merely the consciousness of displaced air.

We were not, as it afterward proved, ten miles from home, and yet, as far as trace of humanity was concerned, we might have been the only created man and woman.

Do you remember the old gypsy song?--Ben Jonson's, I think--

"The owl is abroad, the bat, the toad, And so is the cat-a-mountain; The ant and the mole both sit in a hole, And frog peeps out o' the fountain; The dogs they bay and the timbrels play And the spindle now is turning; The moon it is red, and the stars are fled But all the sky is a-burning."

But we were still more remote, for of beaters of timbrels and turners of spindles were there none!

Your last chronicle interested us all. In the first place father remembers Mrs. Marchant perfectly, for he and the doctor used to exchange visits constantly during that long-ago summer when they lived on the old Herb Farm at Coningsby. Father had heard that she was hopelessly deranged, but nothing further, and the fact that she is living within driving distance in the midst of her garden of fragrance is a striking ill.u.s.tration both of the littleness of the earth and the social remoteness of its inhabitants.

Father says that Mrs. Marchant was always a very intellectual woman, and he remembers that in the old days she had almost a pa.s.sion for fragrant flowers, and once wrote an essay upon the psychology of perfumes that attracted some attention in the medical journal in which it was published by her husband. That the perfume of flowers should now have drawn the shattered fragments of her mind together for their comfort and given her the foretaste of immortality, by the sign of the consciousness of personal presence and peace, is beautiful indeed.

Your declaration that henceforth one garden is not enough for your ambition, but that you crave several, amuses me greatly. For a mere novice I must say that you are making strides in seven-league horticultural boots, wherein you have arrived at the heart of the matter, viz.:--one may grow many beautiful and satisfactory flowers in a mixed garden such as falls to the lot of the average woman sufficiently lucky to own a garden at all, but to develop the best possibilities of any one family, like the rose, carnation, or lily, that is a bit whimsical about food and lodging, each one must have a garden of its own, so to speak, which, for the amateur, may be made to read as a special bed in a special location, and not necessarily a vast area.

This need is always recognized in the English garden books, and the chapter headings, The Rose Garden,--Hardy Garden,--Wall Garden,--Lily Garden,--Alpine Garden, etc., lead one at first sight to think that it is a great estate alone that can be so treated; but it is merely a horticultural protest, born of long experience, against mixing races to their mutual hurt, and this precaution, together with the climate, makes of all England a gardener's paradise!