CHAPTER XIV
IN THE GARDENS
She came out upon the stone terrace again rather early in the
morning. She wanted to wander about in the first freshness
of the day, which was always an uplifting thing to her. She
wanted to see the dew on the grass and on the ragged flower
borders and to hear the tender, broken fluting of birds in the
trees. One cuckoo was calling to another in the park, and
she stopped and listened intently. Until yesterday she had
never heard a cuckoo call, and its hollow mellowness gave
her delight. It meant the spring in England, and nowhere else.
There was space enough to ramble about in the gardens.
Paths and beds were alike overgrown with weeds, but some
strong, early-blooming things were fighting for life, refusing
to be strangled. Against the beautiful old red walls, over
which age had stolen with a wonderful grey bloom, venerable
fruit trees were spread and nailed, and here and there showed
bloom, clumps of low-growing things sturdily advanced their
yellowness or whiteness, as if defying neglect. In one place
a wall slanted and threatened to fall, bearing its nectarine
trees with it; in another there was a gap so evidently not of
to-day that the heap of its masonry upon the border bed was
already covered with greenery, and the roots of the fruit tree it
had supported had sent up strong, insistent shoots.
She passed down broad paths and narrow ones, sometimes
walking under trees, sometimes pushing her way between
encroaching shrubs; she descended delightful mossy and broken
steps and came upon dilapidated urns, in which weeds grew
instead of flowers, and over which rampant but lovely, savage
little creepers clambered and clung.
In one of the walled kitchen gardens she came upon an
elderly gardener at work. At the sound of her approaching
steps he glanced round and then stood up, touching his forelock
in respectful but startled salute. He was so plainly
amazed at the sight of her that she explained herself.
"Good-morning," she said. "I am her ladyship's sister,
Miss Vanderpoel. I came yesterday evening. I am looking
over your gardens."
He touched his forehead again and looked round him. His
manner was not cheerful. He cast a troubled eye about him.
"They're not much to see, miss," he said. "They'd ought to be,
but they're not. Growing things has to be fed and took care of.
A man and a boy can't do it--nor yet four or five of 'em."
"How many ought there to be?" Betty inquired, with business-like
directness. It was not only the dew on the grass she had come
out to see.
"If there was eight or ten of us we might put it in order
and keep it that way. It's a big place, miss."
Betty looked about her as he had done, but with a less
discouraged eye.
"It is a beautiful place, as well as a large one," she said.
"I can see that there ought to be more workers."
"There's no one," said the gardener, "as has as many enemies as a
gardener, an' as many things to fight. There's grubs an' there's
greenfly, an' there's drout', an' wet an' cold, an' mildew, an'
there's what the soil wants and starves without, an' if you
haven't got it nor yet hands an' feet an' tools enough, how's
things to feed, an' fight an' live--let alone bloom an' bear?"
"I don't know much about gardens," said Miss Vanderpoel,
"but I can understand that."
The scent of fresh bedewed things was in the air. It was
true that she had not known much about gardens, but here
standing in the midst of one she began to awaken to a new,
practical interest. A creature of initiative could not let such
a place as this alone. It was beauty being slowly slain. One
could not pass it by and do nothing.
"What is your name?" she asked
"Kedgers, miss. I've only been here about a twelve-month.
I was took on because I'm getting on in years an' can't ask
much wage."
"Can you spare time to take me through the gardens and
show me things?"
Yes, he could do it. In truth, he privately welcomed an
opportunity offering a prospect of excitement so novel. He
had shown more flourishing gardens to other young ladies in
his past years of service, but young ladies did not come to
Stornham, and that one having, with such extraordinary
unexpectedness arrived, should want to look over the desolation
of these, was curious enough to rouse anyone to a sense of a
break in accustomed monotony. The young lady herself mystified
him by her difference from such others as he had seen.
What the man in the shabby livery had felt, he felt also, and
added to this was a sense of the practicalness of the questions
she asked and the interest she showed and a way she had of
seeming singularly to suggest by the look in her eyes and the
tone of her voice that nothing was necessarily without remedy.
When her ladyship walked through the place and looked at
things, a pale resignation expressed itself in the very droop of
her figure. When this one walked through the tumbled-down
grape-houses, potting-sheds and conservatories, she saw where
glass was broken, where benches had fallen and where roofs
sagged and leaked. She inquired about the heating apparatus
and asked that she might see it. She asked about the village
and its resources, about labourers and their wages.
"As if," commented Kedgers mentally, "she was what
Sir Nigel is--leastways what he'd ought to be an' ain't."
She led the way back to the fallen wall and stood and
looked at it.
"It's a beautiful old wall," she said. "It should be rebuilt
with the old brick. New would spoil it."
"Some of this is broken and crumbled away," said Kedgers,
picking up a piece to show it to her.
"Perhaps old brick could be bought somewhere," replied
the young lady speculatively. "One ought to be able to buy
old brick in England, if one is willing to pay for it."
Kedgers scratched his head and gazed at her in respectful
wonder which was almost trouble. Who was going to pay for
things, and who was going to look for things which were not
on the spot? Enterprise like this was not to be explained.
When she left him he stood and watched her upright figure
disappear through the ivy-grown door of the kitchen gardens
with a disturbed but elated expression on his countenance. He
did not know why he felt elated, but he was conscious of
elation. Something new had walked into the place. He stopped
his work and grinned and scratched his head several times after
he went back to his pottering among the cabbage plants.
"My word," he muttered. "She's a fine, straight young
woman. If she was her ladyship things 'ud be different. Sir
Nigel 'ud be different, too--or there'd be some fine upsets."
There was a huge stable yard, and Betty passed through
that on her way back. The door of the carriage house was
open and she saw two or three tumbled-down vehicles. One
was a landau with a wheel off, one was a shabby, old-fashioned,
low phaeton. She caught sight of a patently venerable cob in
one of the stables. The stalls near him were empty.
"I suppose that is all they have to depend upon," she
thought. "And the stables are like the gardens."
She found Lady Anstruthers and Ughtred waiting for her upon the
terrace, each of them regarding her with an expression
suggestive of repressed curiosity as she approached. Lady
Anstruthers flushed a little and went to meet her with an
eager kiss.
"You look like--I don't know quite what you look like,
Betty!" she exclaimed.
The girl's dimple deepened and her eyes said smiling things.
"It is the morning--and your gardens," she answered. "I
have been round your gardens."
"They were beautiful once, I suppose," said Rosy deprecatingly.
"They are beautiful now. There is nothing like them in
America at least."
"I don't remember any gardens in America," Lady
Anstruthers owned reluctantly, "but everything seemed so cheerful
and well cared for and--and new. Don't laugh, Betty. I
have begun to like new things. You would if you had watched
old ones tumbling to pieces for twelve years."
"They ought not to be allowed to tumble to pieces," said
Betty. She added her next words with simple directness. She
could only discover how any advancing steps would be taken
by taking them. "Why do you allow them to do it?"
Lady Anstruthers looked away, but as she looked her eyes
passed Ughtred's.
"I!" she said. "There are so many other things to do.
It would cost so much--such an enormity to keep it all in
order."
"But it ought to be done--for Ughtred's sake."
"I know that," faltered Rosy, "but I can't help it."
"You can," answered Betty, and she put her arm round her as they
turned to enter the house. "When you have become more used to me
and my driving American ways I will show you how."
The lightness with which she said it had an odd effect on Lady
Anstruthers. Such casual readiness was so full of the suggestion
of unheard of possibilities that it was a kind of shock.
"I have been twelve years in getting un-used to you--I feel as if
it would take twelve years more to get used again," she said.
"It won't take twelve weeks," said Betty.
