Part 14 (2/2)

The words rang as clearly in his brain as if there were someone in the room speaking them aloud. Once more the window vanished. There were no voices speaking now; there was only a curious and rather horrible silence, in which there was no need for voices.

The faintest little whine from Josephus aroused him. It was long past the dinner hour, and racing the sands is exceedingly hungry work.

Antony's eyes came back from the window. His face was rather white, and his mouth set in a straight line. But there was an oddly triumphant look in his eyes.

”I think a meal will do us both good, old man,” he said with a little whimsical smile. And he began getting down plates from the dresser.

CHAPTER XV

IN THE GARDEN

Some fifteen or more years ago, the gardens of Chorley Old Hall were famous for their beauty. They still deserved to be famous, and the reason that they were so no longer, arose merely from the fact that they had become unknown, had sunk into obscurity, since no one but the actual inmates of the Hall, Doctor Hilary, and the gardeners themselves ever set eyes on them.

Yet Golding, being an artist at heart, cared for them for pure love of the work, rather than for any kudos such care might bring him. Had he read poetry with as great diligence as he read works on horticulture, he would possibly have declared his doctrine to be found in the words:--

Work thou for pleasure, paint, or sing or carve The thing thou lovest, though the body starve.

Who works for glory misses oft the goal, Who works for money coins his very soul.

Work for the work's sake, and it may be That these things shall be added unto thee.

Certain it is that the gardens under his care were as beautiful as gardens may be. Where trimness was desirable, they were as neat, as well-ordered, as stately as some old-world lady; where nature was allowed fuller sway, they luxuriated in a very riot of mad colour,--pagan, baccha.n.a.lian almost, yet in completest harmony, despite the freedom permitted.

Before the house, beyond a rose-embowered terrace, a wide lawn, soft as thickest velvet, terminated in two great yews, set far apart, a sundial between them, and backgrounded by the sea and sky. To right and left were flower borders brilliant in colour, against yew hedges. Still farther to the right was the Tangle Garden, where climbing roses, honeysuckle, and clematis roamed over pergolas and old tree stumps at their own sweet will and fancy. Beyond the yew hedge on the left was another garden of yews, and firs, and hollies. A long avenue ran its full length while white marble statues, set on either side, gleamed among the darkness of the trees. The end of the avenue formed a frame for an expanse of billowing moorland, range upon range of hills, melting from purple into pale lavender against the distant sky.

Behind the house was another and smaller lawn, broken in the middle by a great marble basin filled with crystal water, whereon rested the smooth flat leaves of water-lilies, and, in their time, the big white blossoms of the chalice-like flowers themselves. A little fountain sprang from the marble basin, making melodious music as the ascending silver stream fell back once more towards its source. Fantailed pigeons preened themselves on the edge of the basin, and peac.o.c.ks strutted the velvet gra.s.s, spreading gorgeous tails of waking eyes to the sun. Beyond the lawn, and separated from it by an old box hedge, was an orchard, where, in the early spring, ma.s.ses of daffodils danced among the rough gra.s.s, and where, later, the trees were covered with a sheet of snowy blossoms--pear, cherry, plum, and apple. A mellow brick wall enclosed the orchard, a wall beautified by small green ferns, by pink and red valerian, and yellow toadflax. Behind the wall lay the kitchen gardens and gla.s.s houses, which ended in another wall separating them from a wood crowning the heights on which Chorley Old Hall was situated.

Had Antony had a free choice of English gardens in which to work, it is quite conceivable that he had chosen these very ones in which fate, or Nicholas Danver's conditions, had placed him. In an astonis.h.i.+ngly short s.p.a.ce of time he was taking as great a pride in them as Golding himself.

It is not to be supposed, however, that, at the outset, Golding was over-pleased to welcome a young man, who had been thrust upon him from the unknown without so much as a by your leave to him. For the first week or so, he eyed the cheerfully self-contained young gardener with something very akin to suspicion, merely allotting to him the heavy and commonplace tasks which Antony had foreseen as his.

Antony made no attempt to impress Golding with the fact that his knowledge of fruit growing, if not of floriculture, was certainly on a level with his own. It was mere chance that brought the fact to light,--the question of a somewhat unusual blight that had appeared on a fruit tree. Antony happened to be in the vicinity of the peach tree when Golding was remarking on it to another gardener. Five minutes later, the second gardener having departed, Antony approached Golding. He respectfully mentioned the nature of the blight, and suggested a remedy.

It led to a conversation, in which Golding's eyes were very considerably opened. He was not a man to continue to indulge in prejudice merely because it had formerly existed in his mind. He realized all at once that he had found a kindred spirit in Antony, and a kind of friends.h.i.+p between the two, having its basis on horticulture, was the result. Not that he showed him the smallest favouritism, however. That would have been altogether outside his sense of the fitness of things.

There were moments when Antony found the situation extraordinarily amusing. Leaning on his spade, he would look up from some freshly turned patch of earth towards the old grey house, a light of humorous laughter in his eyes. Virtually speaking the place was his own already. The months ahead, till he should enter into possession, were but an accidental interlude, in a manner of speaking. He was already planning a little drama in his own mind. He saw himself sauntering into the garden one fine morning, with Josephus at his heels.

”Ah, by the way, Golding,” he would say, ”I'm thinking we might have a bed of cosmos in the southern corner of the Tangle Garden.”

It would do as well as any other remark for a beginning, and he _would_ like a bed of cosmos. He could picture Golding's stare of dignified amazement.

”Are you giving orders?” he could imagine his querying with dry sarcasm.

”If you don't mind,” Antony heard himself answering. ”Though if you _have_ any objection to the cosmos--” And he would pause.

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