SPRING AT KEW.
I am not one of those who believe in going down to the country to look at this Spring of which there is so much talk. Wanting in business organisation and coherent effort, Spring in the country is a poor affair at the best; there may be half-a-dozen daffodils in flower in one spinney, but you have to tramp over two or three muddy fields after that to find a button-hole of primroses, and so onwards over a stile and a ditch to the place where the blackthorn has blossomed and the green woodpecker is pecking the greenwood tree.
And very likely there are gates. Judging from statements in novels you might suppose a gate to be a bright and simple piece of mechanism, swung on by rosy-cheeked children and easily opened by Lord Hugo with his riding-crop so that Lady Hermione may jog through it on her practically priceless bay. That is quite wrong. It rests on the primary fallacy that gates are meant to be opened, whereas they are really meant to be kept shut. What actually happens when you want to open one is that you plunge halfway through a deep quagmire, climb on to a slippery stone, wrestle with a piece of hoop-iron, some barbed wire and some pieces of furze, lift the gate up by the bottom bar and wade through the rest of the quagmire carrying it on your shoulder.
If you are riding like Lord Hugo you hook the fastening of the gate with the handle of your crop and make your horse shunt slowly backwards by applying the reverse clutch with your feet. As the gate refuses to give, you are, of course, drawn gently over the animal's head until you tumble into the bog like a man whose punt-pole is stuck in the bottom of the stream.
That is why I like going down to Kew, where the Spring is tidy and concentrated, and there is a squared map, just like France, at the turnstile gate to direct you to the magnolia dump, and little notices pointing you to the Temperate Houses, though this is really unnecessary, because there are no licensed premises in the Gardens at Kew. All is quiet and calm. You are not even compelled to leave the gravel-walks and tread on the damp grass, unless you have a desire to go to the river's edge and see how stiffly the tail of the Duke of Northumberland's stone lion sticks out on the further bank between the two peel towers from which his crossbowmen contemplate the Surrey marshes.
I used to know a man who had mugged up all the trees and plants, so that when you said to him, "What a funny juniper that is over there, with blue peach-blossoms on it," he would reply, "You mean the Pyrofoliata persica corylus," and explain how it was first introduced into England by Jeremy Taylor in 1658. Then when you went up to look at the placard on the tree you not only found that he was perfectly right, but obtained the additional information that the wood was of a particularly hard and durable nature, and only used for making the heads of croquet mallets and the seats on the tops of motor omnibuses.
I like this plan of putting placards upon trees, and I think it might well be carried out in the country too. There would be none of that standing about in the wet then, and arguing whether the thing is a beech or an oak, when all the time it is a horse-chestnut and laughing up its bark at you.
One must not forget either at Kew the great conservatories, though I do not care for these so much because there are men in them watching to see that you do not pick the cactuses or the palms to put in your button-hole; nor the magnificent Pagoda, which accommodates the Observator, who watches for the flowers to come out, and the Curator, who writes appreciative little notices to stick on the beds; nor the piebald swans in the artificial lake.
But the great glory of Kew is the Pump-room. It is surrounded by marble-topped tables and green seats, and I am aware that it is not called a Pump-room, though a noise proceeds from inside it very like the panting of a pump. They tell me that this is an hydraulic machine for washing up the cups and plates; but I do not believe them, because so many people who take tea round the Pump-room drink left-handed, as if the reverse side of the cup had belonged to somebody else.
Anyhow it is a very jolly and democratic assemblage that sits and drinks tea under the trees and eats cakes that have no placard on them to say at what date they were introduced into England. Here you may see the prosperous docker with his wife and family sitting quite unostentatiously at the next table to the needy scientist who has come to make notes about the purple narcissi. And a little further on is the novelist who is getting local colour for his great rustic love-scene which he is going to say took place in the heart of Devonshire.
But it was not for the purpose of providing you with tea and cakes that the Pump-room was founded. Just as you may read in your morning paper that the Honourable Miss Muffet has proceeded to Harrogate to take the waters, so it is with Kew. One goes to Kew to take the watercresses. I have found out by exhaustive inquiries from one of the waitresses that, though you may substitute rolls and butter for bread and margarine, and may have marmalade with either or both, and though it is optional to eat even the cakes with yellow sugar upon them, there is no way of evading the watercresses. There is a strong feeling amongst the waitresses that it is just these compulsory watercresses which have made us Englishmen what we are. The whole vast pleasure-ground really centres round them, and the reason why Londoners flock (as the papers say) to Kew is that they are hungry for the medicinal virtues of this aquaceous plant.
After you have taken the watercresses you are allowed to wander about the Gardens again and look at Queen Victoria's cottage, round which there is always an eager and admiring crowd examining it from every point of view and wondering what premium they would have to pay for it if it were on the market now. And then you will want to go home and be unable to find the gate; but after a little time the Observator will observe you with his telescope from the top of the Pagoda and mention it to the Curator, who will direct a bronzed and amiable man in a blue uniform to lead you to the turnstile.
I am told that there are some people who do not care to sample their Spring at Kew or in the country either, but prefer to go to San Remo or spend Saturday afternoon toiling in their own back-garden. Let them mind their peas, I say, while I go down to Kew.
Evoe.