Volume Ii Part 24 (1/2)
”Not that which shows itself most splendid to the eye, but which offers fairest indications to the fancy.”
Fleda looked a little wistfully, for there was a smile rather of the eye than of the lips, which said there was a hidden thought beneath.
”Don't you a.s.sign characters to your flowers?” said he, gravely.
”Always.”
”That _rosa sulphurea_ is a haughty high-bred beauty, that disdains even to show herself beautiful, unless she is pleased ? I love better what comes nearer home to the charities and wants of every-day life.”
He had not answered her, Fleda knew; she thought of what he had said to Mrs. Evelyn about liking beauty, but not _beauties_.
”Then.” said he, smiling again in that hidden way, ”the head of the glen gave me the soil I needed for the Bourbons and French roses.”
”Bourbons?” said Fleda.
”Those are exceeding fine ? a hybrid between the Chinese and the _rose-a-quatre-saisons_ ? I have not confined them all to the head of the glen; many of them are in richer soil, grafted on standards.”
”I like standard roses,” said Fleda, ”better than any.”
”Not better than climbers?”
”Better than any climbers I ever saw ? except the banksia.”
”There is hardly a more elegant variety than that, though it is not strictly a climber; and, indeed, when I spoke, I was thinking as much of the training roses. Many of the _noisettes_ are very fine. But I have the climbers all over ? in some parts nothing else, where the wood closes in upon the path ?
there the evergreen roses or the Ayrs.h.i.+re, cover the ground under the trees, or are trained up the trunks, and allowed to find their own way through the branches down again ? the _multiflora_ in the same manner. I have made the _boursault_ cover some unsightly rocks that were in my way. Then in wider parts of the glade, nearer home, are your favourite standards ? the damask, and Provence, and moss, which, you know, are varieties of the _centifolia_, and the _noisette_ standards ? some of them are very fine, and the Chinese roses, and countless hybrids and varieties of all these, with many Bourbons; and your beautiful American yellow rose, and the Austrian briar and eglantine, and the Scotch, and white and dog roses, in their innumerable varieties, change admirably well with the others, and relieve the eye very happily.”
”Relieve the eye!” said Fleda; ”my imagination wants relieving! Isn't there ? I have a fancy that there is ? a view of the sea from some parts of that walk, Mr. Carleton?”
”Yes ? you have a good memory,” said he, smiling. ”On one side the wood is rather dense, and in some parts of the other side; but elsewhere the trees are thinned off towards the south- west, and in one or two points the descent of the ground and some cutting have given free access to the air and free range to the eye, bounded only by the sea-line in the distance; if, indeed, that can be said to bound anything.”
”I haven't seen it since I was a child,” said Fleda. ”And for how long a time in the year is this literally a garden of roses, Mr. Carleton?”
”The perpetual roses are in bloom for eight months ? the damask and the Chinese, and some of their varieties; the Provence roses are in blossom all the summer.”
”Ah! we can do nothing like that in this country,” said Fleda, shaking her head; ”our winters are unmanageable.”
She was silent a minute, turning over the leaves of her book in an abstracted manner.
”You have struck out upon a grave path of reflection,” said Mr. Carleton, gently, ”and left me bewildered among the roses.”
”I was thinking,” said Fleda, looking up and laughing, ”I was moralizing to myself upon the curious equalization of happiness in the world; I just sheered off from a feeling of envy, and comfortably reflected that one measures happiness by what one knows ? not by what one does not know; and so, that in all probability I have had near as much enjoyment in the little number of plants that I have brought up and cherished, and know intimately, as you, Sir, in your superb walk through fairy-land.”
”Do you suppose,” said he, laughing, ”that I leave the whole care of fairy-land to my gardener? No, you are mistaken; when the roses are to act as my correctors, I find I must become theirs. I seldom go among them without a pruning knife, and never without wis.h.i.+ng for one. And you are certainly right so far ? that the plants on which I bestow most pains give me the most pleasure. There are some that no hand but mine ever touches, and those are by far the best loved of my eye.”
A discussion followed ? partly natural, partly moral ? on the manner of pruning various roses, and on the curious connection between care and complacency, and the philosophy of the same.
”The rules of the library are to shut up at sundown, Sir,”
said one the bookmen, who had come into the room.
”Sundown!” exclaimed Fleda, jumping up; ”is my uncle not here, Mr. Frost?”
”He has been gone half an hour, Ma'am.”