Part 38

That advertisement and the extra pound lured me on to further bulbs. Two hundred narcissi, mixed, and so cheap! only five shillings, were buried in the grass down the shrubbery side of the lawn. How cheering they would be in spring! A sweep of sweet nodding white and yellow.

"There is one thing you have utterly forgotten, Mary, and really no garden should be without them," said one of the Others.

"I know you are going to suggest some greenhouse nursling. Remember the frame is not a conservatory." And I hoped my bulbs were still a surprise.

"Oh, you old Solomon! And since when do lilies of the valley refuse to grow out of doors?"

"Lilies of the valley! Now, why didn't you speak sooner?"

"Is it too late? Why? You are still grubbing in things, aren't you?"

"I have shut the purse for the autumn. Honestly, I must keep the rest for the spring."

"Well, look here, don't be alarmed, we won't do it often, but I looked at your catalogue and saw they were six shillings a hundred, so 'we' give them on the condition we may pick them."

"I like you! Where don't you pick? All right, I will gratefully take the six shillings."

"A shady spot," I should have said a year ago, but no, not a bit of it, after my experiences with the violets. A narrow border near a little wall, but on which the sun did not flare continuously, and there we prepared the ground, though it seemed pretty good on its own account for a wonder; and the hundred fibrous roots were carefully spread out and covered over. I thought of young "Sandhurst." If I give him lilies of the valley for a button-hole he will think the garden is indeed growing. Though if the lilies should fail! But why should they? Griggs did not touch them.

* * * * *

Jim said,

"You are a fraud, Mary, that's what you are."

My thoughts flew to suggestions given for an essay on "The Heroic Qualities" which Jim and I had discussed with much energy. But it was not that.

"No, it was pretty footling, that essay, anyway; but the other fellows did just as badly. You promised me a go at tap-roots, and even old Griggs says we can't tackle them now. He says he thinks there are probably jolly long ones, and I do think you might have thought of it in time."

"I have been so busy, Jim, and it isn't my department proper. Let us bike over and ask the Master if it is too late. Griggs doesn't really know; he generally repeats what I tell him."

"He knows enough not to do things, does Griggs. I have found that out. He is a champion skulker."

Jim was very despondent, but a good spin along the hard road, with the bright sun that late autumn sometimes sees, raised his spirits.

The Master was in his garden, and oh! how neat and brushed up and ready for its sleeping-time looked his garden. Not empty or dead, but intentionally tucked up and ready for the snowy counterpane, and protected from the biting blast.

It was late, he said, but the weather still held up; we might try taking up one at a time and replacing it so that it should not take cold.

Jim took the directions with great attention.

"I am going to boss this, Mary; you said it wasn't your department."

The way he worked and ordered about Griggs and the coachman, summoned to give his unwilling help, promised well for his future as an admiral. The whole roots of the young pear tree were dug up with the greatest care; the tap-root, there it was sure enough, and all the vitality of the tree going gaily to swell its dimensions, was cut away, and then it was raised into a well-doctored hole, with a broad slab-like stone under it to cut short any further aspirations after such a root again, and all other branch roots carefully spread out to encourage growth and general productiveness.

Jim worked himself and his men, and also the Young Man, hard; I was an admiring onlooker until the operation was finished and the tree standing up quite firm again. Then, as Jim was bent on yet another, and refused to think it too late, I wandered down my lime-tree walk, where snowdrops were now hidden. I had collected ferns there and more primroses, and clumps of foxgloves on the sunniest side, just where they would catch the eye from the garden.

A feeling of peace was in the air; one bird dropped a note and another caught it up; not a ringing challenge of song, but a pleasant exchange of compliments. "Going strong?" "Oh, rather!" "Berries look well." "Prime!" "Good old world!" A squirrel frisked past up a tree with a look down at me, saying, "Ah! don't you wish you could do it!" and then off he went, terribly busy with his nut store. He and Griggs had had a race over the small walnuts which adorned one tree, and I think the squirrel could account for the better part. It was all right, all in order, this going to sleep time, this baring of boughs, decaying of vegetation, this "season of mists." A little while, only a little while and the change would begin; after sleep would come the great awakening. I picked a brown bud from the chestnut tree and cut it in half with my knife. There was the promise, the great life spirit already at work. Cushioned in the centre the embryo of the spiral-shaped bloom for May was to be plainly seen. The spring was preparing right through the winter. I heard Jim's voice, cheery and ringing, "Now then, you fellows, heave away! Oh, I say, Young Man, don't scoot just yet."

Steps rustled behind me, and as he joined me we walked on under the lime trees and I tried to talk of my garden, but he did not appear responsive; and finally, when I could walk no further, for I was wedged in the swing gate that opened on to the field he blocked the opening and said,

"I don't the least want to talk of the garden."

"Well, talk of this," I said, and gave him the chestnut twig I had broken off; "it is full of meaning."