Here, two score of years later, as I dream of the past, lies Arabella stretched by the fire, now and again heaving her great sighs of comfort. Bettina, curled at my feet, looks up adoringly at the master and wags her stump of tail whenever she meets his eye. As for Prince Loki, he has commandeered the best deep armchair, where he lies flat on his back, with front paws folded upon his bosom, and hind legs stretched out in abandoned beatific fashion, snoring melodiously.... Cura canum postrema, indeed!
XV
The Hyacinths are all out in the Dutch Garden. But alas, the winds of March!—they grew and gathered and became a gale and laid some twenty of our silver-blue soldiers prostrate. Their fat juicy stalks snap all too easily. In the pots on the terrace wall, half have been swept away. However, thanks to our close planting, only the eye of the initiate could perceive the gaps. Right under the study windows there are still twin lakes of exquisite pale sapphire, breathing fragrance.
In the bank below the Dutch Garden, the Narcissus, which have been set to the tune of two thousand, are swaying long lemon-coloured buds out of a field of green spikes. There are, in that tongue of land, two Buddleia trees which have grown to unusual height and girth and are a mass of orange balls in due season. And there is a band of Iris to which we are perpetually adding, but which, mysteriously, never seems to increase. There is also a shrubby bit where you will behold a wild rose tree; two nondescript flowering evergreens; a darling little Scotch Briar, one mass of yellow Pompons, entrancing by their wild scent; those disappointing bushes known as Altheas, so eulogized by garden chroniclers; and a Rheum.
We planted the Rheum last year. This March it astonishes us by the leaf buds it has produced. They are like stormy, sinister, crimson blossoms with gaping yellow mouths, and look poisonous and tropical: altogether out of place in a Surrey moorland—especially with the innocence of the grey Lavender plant that grows beside them. What a thrilling thing a garden is and how full of surprises!—do Rheums always do this, we wonder?
CARPETS OF BLUE
