Now, as one who knows practically nought of the gardener’s “Arte and Mysterie,” my interest in the matter is of the irresponsible kind. I look forward, of course, and keenly, to the satisfying display, first of our sappy, turgid fragrant Hyacinth beds in the Dutch Garden ‹somehow, the Dutch Garden seems to belong more particularly to my own side of the Villino—to be a precinct of my study in fact› than to the proud-pied array of the subsequent Tulips, nodding in the breeze over their bed of close clustering Forget-me-Nots. This is the annual treat provided in the spring—for Grandpa’s especial behoof at Villino Loki—by the industrious care of the knowledgeable ladies. Nevertheless, as I say, my interest is of the general order; not of details; not of ways and means. I expect, in the maturity of every season, delightful achievements, and find them; but I take little part in their planning. I am of no use for device and not called upon in council. I thankfully enjoy the results; and this is perhaps not the worst part the Master of the House could play in the year’s transaction.
Only on two occasions have I volunteered a suggestion with regard to planting—and both are related to early, very early, reminiscences.
Creepers of all sorts we have in profusion. Ivy, of course, and Jessamine and Honeysuckle, and the gorgeous, if short-lived, Virginia-Ampilopsis its name, I believe. But there is one thing, I pointed out, I must have also, and that is the blue clustering, the incomparably fragrant Glycine of my early childhood’s days. Wisteria is its proper English name.
Odoriferous bushes, again, we have, of every description. Ribes, Cassia, Gummy Cistus, what not?—lurk in ambuscade at the turning of paths to waylay you with their gush of essence, not to speak of the Azaleas in their banks; but all these perfumes, in their subtleness, belong to the middle years. No memories of the complete freshness of time cleave to them such as belong to the simple Sweet Briar.
So, now, the two rooted creatures of the Villino, which may be said to exist there more specially for the behoof of Loki’s Grandpa, are the Briar bushes at the end of the Lily Walk and by the Schöne Aussicht, and the still tender but promising Wisteria climbers in the re-entering and most sheltered corner of his study walls.
FLOWER LOVES OF CHILDHOOD
And it is for those young hopeful Wisterias that on this frosty night I feel a concern. Last year we had a score or so of purple clusters; we look to a goodly increase during the coming Renouveau.—‹You perceive the old, obsolete French word for Spring comes back of itself!› The anticipation of the near future, within the shrinking vista of coming pleasures, elicits as usual a return to the widening past. In this case the past that is recalled is that of a childhood spent in France.
The book lies forgotten on my knee. The brown Meerschaum grows cold in my hand. My eyes, lost in musings among the flame-fringed logs, now peer beyond the past half-century—at a time which seems verily as far distant and as little related to the present as that year 1636 stamped and still faintly discernible on the antique cast-iron backplate of the fireplace.... I see a farm-house in a village of that province which in ancient days was known as Ile-de-France ‹I hate your modern régime départements›, by name Mesnil-le-Roy; not far distant from Mantes, the natty little town on the upper and green-watered Seine, generally adverted to as Mantes-la-Jolie.