Part 26

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There is a walk in a wonderful garden not far from here—a garden which brings a kind of fainting, despairing envy to the soul of Loki’s Grandmother—where Lavender and Penstemons make the happiest possible effect. The walk itself is a thing of beauty; through woodland on one side, the border in question runs quite a long way against a low parapet on the other. Below this parapet the ground slopes down, and at the end of the walk there is so abrupt a fall that it seems almost to end in mid-air with a vast panorama far beneath. And on the side of the flowery border a shelving precipice falls away out of which giant stone pines hang against the distant horizon. The Lavender has grown to a hedge, and the varying soft pinks of the Penstemons run vividly against its mistiness.

Would that walk, and that border, and that view, were ours!

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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 the Rose Garden; and if she had not had the sense to scream for help, and to hold on to the rim of the barrel with all her little claws, she would have been a drowned Betty, and nobody the wiser, perhaps, for days and days.

We think it would have broken Juvenal’s heart.

Both Arabella and Loki were standing staring stiffly instead of doing what was expected of dogs of such intellect: which was running to fetch human help.

On a former occasion however, when Kitty-Wee had a fit, poor little darling, Loki acted up to our opinion of him. We had gone for a walk on the moor, and the Persian Princess, still half in her kittenhood, had accompanied us, with that touching display of pleasure at being in our company which makes the Fur Children so endearing. She had to roll on the grass in front of us, sharpen her claws on every tree, and rub her pretty head against our skirts in the endeavour to show her feelings. We suppose these feelings were too much for her. We had halted in the greenhouse when Loki dashed in upon us, whimpering in a frightful state of agitation. He drew his Grandmother out of the greenhouse, and rushed up to stand over his little fur sister, crying out loud in sympathy and distress.

She was a small convulsed heap upon the ground. Fortunately the tap, which ran into one of those delectable barrels of odoriferous water so precious to the garden, was quite close, and we were able to administer first aid with promptitude.

For all who do not know it: cold water to the head gives immediate relief to any little creature in such a seizure.

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She quite grew out of them. But, alas! our thistledown Princess, our dear pretty silver lady! We have delayed to write her sad fate into the pages of the chronicle of the happy Fur Family. She was stolen! We often lie awake thinking of her. Pampered as she was; so accustomed to be thought of, and cherished, and made much of; to have her pearly robe brushed and combed to the last point of perfection, her dainty appetite catered for; to find a caress and a cuddle whenever she was in the mood for it! A lurid mystery ‹accompanied by a great deal of hard swearing› envelops her loss. She was lost on a half-hour’s motor-trip which her family, struck with momentary idiocy, was allowing her to undertake alone. She was, in fact, about to contract another matrimonial alliance with a prince of her own race, and was so securely packed in her luxurious travelling basket, so unmistakably labelled, so solemnly handed over to the care of the conductor of the motor ’bus, that it did not seem as if she could come to harm.

But Blue Persians, as well as pink pearls, are over-precious chattels to confide to a dishonest world! The conductor of the next ’bus to that by which she was expected, handed an empty basket to the envoy from the other side; and when this was refused, declared the cat had escaped on the way. As the basket was hermetically closed, this lie had not even the merit of being plausible. But puzzle succeeded puzzle when the waiter from the Golf Club House, a reliable witness, deposed having picked up the same basket still securely fastened at every corner—but minus the cat—on the first round of the ’bus. “It could have gone to Siberia in that basket,” he declared, “it was that strong and solid!”

The local police, a most intelligent and valuable body of men, declared that nothing could be done, “as no man could be taken up for telling a lie.” And the railway company, after punching a large hole in the basket, announced that as the cat was not insured, we might sue them for five shillings! We advertised and beat the countryside in vain—Kitty-Wee has gone out of our lives. If we only knew that she was happy, the ache at our hearts would be less.

We must fill the gap, and are deliberating whether a pair of Blue Persians, or an orange couple, would afford us the greater joy. We think to decide on the latter would be less callous to the memory of Kitty-Wee, and provide perhaps a better match in the little Villino that runs so much to orange and yellow.

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Never could there be anything more beautiful than the St. John’s Wort along the moorland roads. It has been a day of golden heat, the distant woods have shimmering purple vapours in their hollows, and the hills are misty blue. There had been a fire last year in a great flat stretch of pinewood that runs into heather and moor, high above where the road begins to fall into the first of the little country towns between us and London. The wood had been cleared of the dead trees and we suppose it is this which has given encouragement to the great yellow weed. However it may be, it is a field of cloth of gold now. Pines rise up at intervals in their dark solemnity. Royal purple of the heather runs into the gold. It is a meeting of colour that ought to be immortalized.

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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 have anything to say to it, is, should the scheme contemplated be successful, to show a cool vista of greys, lavender blues, and “rose mourante” behind the arch where the same irrepressible Perkins flaunts herself in such splendour. The Delphiniums, which have done so well there, will have spent their hour of glorious life before the arch enters upon its triumph.

What a mausoleum that Lily Walk has proved itself! It has been one of our tragedies! Adam is quite dispassionate, and says “it’s the Lily disease; and there’s a deal of it about.”

By one of those freakish accidents that will occur in the best regulated gardens, a batch of Fairy Lilies was planted behind the ramping Alstrumerias. This was discovered too late, when these bold Peruvians were succumbing.

But besides the amount of sickly, straggling “Candidums,” “Auratums,” and “Tigers” that have disgraced the border, there is the unaccountable number of bulbs that have been swallowed up in it! The whole thing must be dug out this autumn. And the scheme is now to grow Ceanothus “Gloire de Versailles” up the wooden trellis at the back between the Roses the foliage of which is always blighted, and to have a pillar of Blush Rambler at the end, by the side of the Wellingtonia which closes the border. Bushes of Ceanothus Azureas, as well as the successful “Gloire de Versailles”; a drift of Achillea, shading from the palest pink to deep carmine; bushes of Catmint; the new pale pink Spirea, perennial Gypsophila; mauve Galiga ‹Salvia, Miss Jekyll recommends›; Sea Lavender and a couple of clumps of Eringium will complete the effect. Perhaps there shall be Moon Daisies, pale pink and mauve Penstemons, and one or two groups of “Cottage Maid” Antirrhinums to fill up the gaps. But what we feel is needed is the grey, mauve, silver, and lavender-blue tinting against which Dorothy Perkins may be as flaming as she likes.