Part 28 (1/2)
”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 his 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 grat.i.tude, 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 pa.s.sing of winter.”
James looked at me in disgust.
”Grat.i.tude!” 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!”
XXIV. THE LANDSCAPE GARDENER
Really I know nothing about flowers. By a bit of luck, James, my gardener, whom I pay half-a-crown a week for combing the beds, knows nothing about them either; so my ignorance remains undiscovered. But in other people's gardens I have to make something of an effort to keep up appearances. Without flattering myself I may say that I have acquired a certain manner; I give the impression of the garden lover, or the man with shares in a seed-company, or--or something.
For instance, at Creek Cottage, Mrs. Atherley will say to me, ”That's an _Amphilobertus Gemini_,” pointing to something which I hadn't noticed behind a rake.
”I am not a bit surprised,” I say calmly.
”And a _Gladiophinium Banksii_ next to it.”
”I suspected it,” I confess in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.
Towards flowers whose names I know I adopt a different tone.
”Aren't you surprised to see daffodils out so early?” says Mrs. Atherley with pride.
”There are lots out in London,” I mention casually. ”In the shops.”
”So there are grapes,” says Miss Atherley.
”I was not talking about grapes,” I reply stiffly.
However at Creek Cottage just now I can afford to be natural; for it is not gardening which comes under discussion these days, but landscape-gardening, and any one can be an authority on that. The Atherleys, fired by my tales of Sandringham, Chatsworth, Arundel, and other places where I am constantly spending the week-end, are re-adjusting their two-acre field. In future it will not be called ”the garden,” but ”the grounds.”
I was privileged to be shown over the grounds on my last visit to Creek Cottage.
”Here,” said Mrs. Atherley, ”we are having a plantation. It will keep the wind off; and we shall often sit here in the early days of summer.
That's a weeping ash in the middle. There's another one over there.