Our Sentimental Garden - free ebook by Agnes Castle

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Our Sentimental Garden

Agnes Castle

43 chapters

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43 chapters

Villino Loki

Villino Loki

Never was trifling chronicle begun so light-heartedly as this chatty, idly reminiscent book of ours—and now it is under the great shadow of war, of death and suffering, that we see it pass into its final shape! The “little paradise on the hill,” with all its innocent pleasures, its everyday joys and cares; with the antics of the “little furry things at play,” the sayings and doings of the “famiglia”; the roses, the bulbs and seedlings; our alluring garden plans, our small despairs and unexpected

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I

I

It is easier to begin with our beasts.—First, they are much the most important, and secondly, there are only six of them. Our bulbs lie in their thousands with just a green nose showing here and there now in January and are nameless things: only collectively dear, if extraordinarily so. It will instantly be perceived what kind of gardeners we are, and what kind of garden we keep. We have scarcely a single plant of “individuality.” We do not spend ten guineas on a jonquil bulb, nor fifteen on a p

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II

II

Where we live, high on the southern moorlands of Surrey, the desolation of winter never seems to reach us; unless, indeed, upon certain days of streaming rains, or weeping mists that rush rapid and ghost-like up the valley, and blot out the world from view. But those days would be dreary anywhere and in any season. Our funny little house, more like an Italian “Villino,” perhaps, than anything English, stands high, midway between the rolling shoulders of moor and the green-wooded dip of the valle

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III

III

When we first began to own a garden we could not bring ourselves to wait in patience for developments. We expected our beds to bloom as by magic. We vehemently ordered pot-plants because no seedlings could be expected to “do anything” in June; and the disproportion between our bills and the result filled us with dismay. But a garden is at once the most delightful and cunning of teachers. How kindly are the virtues it inculcates!—Patience, faith, hope, tenderness, gratitude, resignation, things i

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IV

IV

And did we say that one could ever in any circumstances wish Susan into the dogstar? Alas! poor dear little Susan, she reposes in a raw, ostentatious grave in the Oak Tree Glade with six bulb spikes at the top of the mound. We should like to put a granite stone there with the words: “Here lies Susan, a good dog.” All that was possible was done to save her, and she was the most pathetic, gentle, patient creature; at the very end, seeking blindly with one small paw for her master. Poor Juvenal was

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V

V

Travelling along the pleasant path of life, on the reverse side of the hill, the downward course ‹how graphic is the French of it for the later and “smaller half” of our allotted span: sur le retour ›, there is a tendency to dwell more upon memories and proportionately less on ambitions. The prospect now ahead, placid and mellowed as it may be, naturally dwindles to narrower margins. Its interest is more of the immediate order; deals mostly with hopes and doings of the coming season. And, the ci

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VI

VI

Strange how sharp and detailed will some of our very early memories remain in after life, when even important scenes of our later years are so easily forgotten! That old farm of Mesnil-le-Roy is still a clear picture, vignetted, so to speak, upon grey pages of oblivion.... I can yet see the orchard, strewn with myriad fallen apples—the byres, whereto at sundown returned the slow-pacing, dreamy, placid-eyed milch cows; the giant walnut-tree, with one of its main branches blasted by lightning—blas

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VII

VII

Poor little old town of St. Clodoald! In later years I spent an afternoon hunting up its distant remembrances. Alas, but it was like looking at some worn-out engraving, some faded dun picture once known in all its brilliancy. Obliterated was the dainty white stone Palace; scene of the revelries and the bright-coloured elegancies of the Regent; favourite retreat of Marie Antoinette; theatre of the “ Dix-huit Brumaire ” drama; early home of l’Aiglon ! The Château de St. Cloud, the summer residence

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VIII

VIII

The ways of our musings are as devious, as unexpected, as those of a general conversation: there is no presiding spirit to keep us to a standing topic! This topic, with us, should be “Our Sentimental Garden.” And our tattle should, really, be connected, even if but distantly; with plants or scenery; with country life and friends ‹or foes›; with emotions or reminiscences plausibly evoked by the flower side of life. Happily it is pleasant enough to be brought back to the right theme; as I am just

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IX

IX

The Lilac and Acacia, for instance, were the flower-bearers of the tree-planted playground of that jocund old school where I received the first rudiments of education: the Institution Delescluze , then situate in a kind of backwater of the faubourg St. Honoré at the angle facing the Palais de l’Elysée . It has, alas long since been swept away to make room for modern mansions. This ancient Institution , or preparatory school, would seem to have dated from the distant days, early Louis XV probably

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X

X

As for the Acacias, in that queer old courtyard—distinctly exotic creatures, aristocrats in the company of those palpable sons of the soil, the caducous orchard trees—I still wonder how they ever came there. Their rôle in the life of the small-boy school seems to have been that of a butt for cockshies, and thus passively to foster a notable precision in the use of those small river pebbles with which the playground was covered. A game, deeply favoured by the young scholars ‹but not recognized by

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XI

XI

A glowing log rolls down from its allotted place on the hearth, sending into the room a jet of wood smoke, blue at the stem, white feathering as it spreads out; and the pungent smell immediately revives a fresh set of scenes from the past. That nothing brings back old memories so suddenly and so vividly as perfume is a commonplace remark. But I wonder whether the extraordinary persistency of a first impression, in the case of odours constantly met with, has been so generally noticed. Perhaps I a

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XII

XII

Connected with those enthralling first tales, now that I come to think of it, is the development of certain simple tastes in food which have endured through a life not altogether devoid of gastronomic discrimination. Among these may be mentioned a special delight in lentils—later on extended to other members of the pulse tribe, but in its origin especially concerned with lentils. It is to be noted that the Epitome rendering of what in the Authorised Version appears as red pottage is un plat de l

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XIII

XIII

Talking of the proper need of appreciation that might be rendered to some of nature’s goodly gifts, if only they were presented to us as something rare and novel—what of the humble but invaluable onion? “The onion,” as Stevenson says in his masterpiece, Prince Otto ‹and great was my satisfaction when I first read the pronouncement›, “which ranks with the truffle and the nectarine in the chief place of honour of earth’s fruit.” Truffle and nectarine are doubtless honourable terms of comparison, b

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XIV

XIV

I have said that it is not on memory’s record that the whilom schoolboy, now in his mediæval student mood, failed to rise at the appointed clock crow. Of a truth he rarely had less than his eight hours good sleep, glad enough as he was to retire to rest at nine—“curfew time.” But it must be admitted that on one occasion or two he succumbed to the weakness of compounding with his studious resolutions. The French equivalent of playing truant is faire l’école buissonière —a taking term, redolent of

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XV

XV

The Hyacinths are all out in the Dutch Garden. But alas, the winds of March!—they grew and gathered and became a gale and laid some twenty of our silver-blue soldiers prostrate. Their fat juicy stalks snap all too easily. In the pots on the terrace wall, half have been swept away. However, thanks to our close planting, only the eye of the initiate could perceive the gaps. Right under the study windows there are still twin lakes of exquisite pale sapphire, breathing fragrance. In the bank below t

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XVI

XVI

A friend of ours once told us that a doubtful sister-in-law had written describing the weather as “boysterious.” The word pleases us. It looks so much more graphic, spelt thus, than in the ordinary way. Well, we are having a “boysterious” time with shifting winds, this end of March. All the poor Pheasant-eye’s leaves are bruised and drooping, and the little field of Narcissus under the Buddleia trees is bent and tangled. To-day Adam has rolled away six tubs filled with last year’s Hyacinths and

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XVII

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 bei

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XVIII

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 matro

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XIX

XIX

The Blue Border. 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 th

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XX

XX

Beeches, on the other hand, have a kind of fairy glory about them that does not seem to belong to our land. We drove through a beech forest the other day; the road went up zigzagging to the top of a steep hill, and one looked down upon the Beech glades, all golden green in a fierce sunburst between two showers. And they were still dripping with the rain. It was wonderful, but not English, distinctively English, like that Oak wood. It was a Märchen-Wald . Siegfried might have strode through it, b

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XXI

XXI

The last day of May. After the usual “contrariness” of life we have spent the hot span in London, and returned here to find that ungenial nor’west wind blowing in upon us apparently over the same icebergs as a month ago. We think with wails of regret of the long, golden, balmy garden-days we missed; of the full glory of the Azaleas; of those splendours of Rose Tulips which we should have enjoyed, radiant in the sunshine, instead of seeing them yawn their lives away in a hot town drawing-room. An

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XXII

XXII

Yesterday Loki’s family motored energetically some fifty miles and back to a garden party near London. A wonderful house with wonderful lawns and gardens—one feels that the hideous tide of brick and mortar must inevitably sweep over and destroy it before another generation comes and goes, so that there is a kind of pathos in its very beauty. Out of the unlovely mean streets along which the tram-line runs its abominable way, one turns off into the cool country road. The long avenue is bordered by

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XXIII

XXIII

Loki is once more Only-dog in London. He is unspeakably grimy, as none of the famiglia except Juvenal are ever able or willing to tub him when he most wants it. Juvenal, his special friend, has been away on his holiday—poor little Loki could not understand his absence. He was perpetually rushing out of the rooms and downstairs to see if he had arrived. At last, worn out with suspense, he dashed up to his butler’s bedroom and would not be satisfied till he was admitted; when, jumping on the bed,

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XXIV

XXIV

The Master of the House—he has admitted it himself somewhere in these pages—understands little if anything of gardener’s art: that is, of the art of rearing flowers in their proper seasons, in suitable ground and so forth. But he complacently believes that he has an aptitude for what, on a larger theatre of operations than the few acres of Villino Loki, would be called Landscape Gardening! He imagines that, had fate provided him with an “estate,” he would have been great at devising vistas, grou

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XXV

XXV

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 rise

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XXVI

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 t

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XXVII

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

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XXVIII

XXVIII

Mid-August and the lists beginning to come in! Mr. Eden Phillpotts, in his delightful garden book, says that no one is a true garden lover who is not instantly lost in every nurseryman’s list, who does not immediately draw out orders far beyond his means, and spend his time in plans and combinations that shall transcend Kew as well as Babylon. What garden lovers are we in this respect! It is only when the orders are written out and the prices totted up that sober reason obtrudes its forbidding c

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XXIX

XXIX

This morning, waking at dawn, the Padrona was impelled to roll out of bed, and look out of both her windows. The one over her balcony gives down the valley and the one opposite her bed affords her vision of the moor rolling away beyond the Dutch Garden and the terrace corner. If she had been but a woman of moderate vigour, she would not have gone to bed again till the whole pageant of mysterious glory had fulfilled itself before her eyes. For what a sight it was! First of all, the whole garden,

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XXX

XXX

One of the advantages of being “little people in a little place” is the pleasure small things can give one. The Duke of Devonshire has seventy men in his garden. Is it possible to imagine taking an interest in anything conducted on so enormous a scale? It is not gardening, it is horticultural government! There can be no individual knowledge of any “beloved flower,” as our Dutch friend has it. Outside a millionaire’s greenhouse we once beheld regiment after regiment of Begonia pots. It made one’s

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XXXI

XXXI

The really artistic member of the famiglia is Juvenal. He settles all the flowers; and for that alone—for the pleasure he gets from it and the pleasure he gives—he is worth his weight in gold. The little gold and mother-of-pearl tinted Italian drawing-room is always a bower. Yesterday, on the silver table which stands beneath a silver and gold Ikon, he set a vase of white and yellow Roses. It was a touch of genius! We are quite sick of reading how beautiful Primroses look in Benares brass bowls.

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XXXII

XXXII

England is so seldom visited by hot weather such as we now have, that, especially in our little place with its foreign stamp within and without, one keeps thinking of other lands. There was the one hot summer we went visiting in country houses in Italy—two country houses, to be precise, and both of them were “ castelli .” The first ‹which we preferred vastly› was on a high plateau in the middle of the Piedmontese plain, not far from Turin. From that entrancing spot the view lay over wide undulat

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XXXIII

XXXIII

There is no ghost in the garden of the Villino. Neither the meek spirit of Susan nor Tom’s saturnine spectre haunts the peaceful glade where they lie. ‹Juvenal has planted a “Tree of Heaven” at the head of his ever-mourned darling and covered the grave with Forget-me-nots!› My youth ‹these reminiscences are contributed by Loki’s grandmother› was spent in a large country place in Ireland, and to us children—we were six then—certain walks, certain dells in the woods, were assuredly haunted. The pr

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XXXIV

XXXIV

Looking back now, it seems to me that the whole of my childhood was pursued by one phantom or another. The smell of the woods through the open nursery window on a hot summer’s night turned me sick with an unspeakable apprehension. Believers in reincarnation would attribute this peculiarity to some sylvan tragedy in a previous existence. No doubt there must have been a physical explanation. I have come to the conclusion that most things in life are capable of a double interpretation; which is the

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XXXV

XXXV

I promised to return to gardens, and here I am. What a garden that was! Not a bit uncomfortable in spite of its company of departed friars. The monk’s old Yew Walk was there; such a one as has not its match in the kingdom, I believe. There too were fields of “Malmaison” Carnations. Never have I beheld such lavishness before or since. The scent of the things! It was our hostess’s rather extravagant fancy. I don’t know that I exactly envy it. It was almost too much, but yet it was a wonder! I thin

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XXXVI

XXXVI

I have solemnly sworn my family that when I die I am not to be buried in a “Necropolis.” Horrible thought, a “city” of the dead! To hate the herd when living, and to be forcibly associated with it till the Day of Judgment, if not evicted to make room for fresh tenants! In the very early months of my marriage we were obliged to take up our abode in a large northern town, for Loki’s future grandfather had to study certain aspects of newspaper management. Never was anything more difficult to find t

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XXXVII

XXXVII

Irish born as I am, there is something in the breath of Ireland that makes my heart rise. The sound of the soft Irish voices is music to my ear. I forgive the slipshod ways because of the general delightfulness. Distressful country as it is—more than ever, now, alas! the battle-ground of factions—from the moment of our landing joyfully on its shores, to the sad hour of parting, our too rare visits to Ireland have been punctuated by kindly and innocent laughter. Impossible, beloved people! They b

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XXXVIII

XXXVIII

Humours pursued us during our brief sojourn in the hotel. We are very fond of that hotel. It is associated with the repeated charm of its hospitable reception on each of our visits. We were glad to see we were given the same set of rooms as on a previous occasion; and when we found the same broken lock on the door, we felt indeed that we were among old friends. When our tea was brought—we were lying down to rest—we had however to ring and protest. “Look at this spoon!” we exclaimed dramatically.

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XXXIX

XXXIX

From the rich plains of Meath to the barren lands of Galway, it is a far cry and an unforgettable journey. The country grows more and more desolate, and grand in desolation, as one approaches the Atlantic. There was an orange sunset that evening, over an illimitable stretch of bog, a vision of savage, haunting beauty that went with us into the darkness of the fast closing day like a strain of wild music. Ireland has always been as a living creature to her children. She has taken, in their fancif

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XL

XL

The country all about Kilcoultra is typically wild and melancholy. The fields stretch, barren and yellowing, strewn with giant stones. Except where sombre belts of woodland mark the great estates, there is scarcely a tree to break the monotony; a monotony intensified by the low, unending lines of rough grey walls that border every road. But there is a kind of poetry even in this desolation, and a satisfaction to all who love the freedom of unbounded horizons. Then the mountains of Clare stretch

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XLI

XLI

Once more has the Equinox come and dropped into the past. Autumn—the Fall, as our older and more poetic term had it to balance the image of Spring, and as America still prefers to call it—is about us. We disagree radically with Chateaubriand’s estimate of the “russet and silver days.” “A moral character” ‹thus does the Father of Romantisme meditate, in his usual melancholy mood, upon the season of shortening days and long-drawing nights› “is attached to autumnal scenes.... The leaves falling lik

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XLII

XLII

It is the dream of the owners of Villino Loki to build on another wing; but, so far, funds do not run to this. The Villino is sadly short of guest chambers; that is because one room has been for ever allotted to the little Oratory. This little Chapel is a haven of peace. One’s thoughts turn to it when one has the misfortune to be away from home. Over the altar there hangs a large, wonderfully beautiful crucifix. The figure, white majolica, was bought in a villainous den of a curiosity shop on th

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