So, as I said before, I made up my mind, not to go making a stupid of myself any longer, playing at market-gardening, and turning myself into a manufacturing green-grocer and fruiterer, by trying to convert a trumpery band-box full of mould and gravel into a productive orchard. Accordingly I determined to root up the whole of those rat-tailed stalks of cabbages, and have the place nicely turfed in the centre, and a few pretty rose-bushes, and geranium trees, and other odd things, that at any rate would be pleasant to one’s eye and nose, put round the sides. Consequently I had up Mr. Dick Farden, and asked him whether he thought he could manage that for me without spoiling it; but really the fellow was so conceited, and fancied himself so clever, that, of course, he was as confident he could do it for me as he was that he could move my piano—(and a pretty mess he made of that—as the reader knows!) He couldn’t, however, merely give a simple answer to a simple question, and have done with it, but must go on talking his head off, and speaking to me as familiarly as if I was one of his pot-companions, saying that it was very easy to lay the ground out, but he was afraid I should find it quite as hard to raise a nosegay as a salad “in the first city of the world.” For, in all in his experience, he had noticed that Cockney roses were not to be forced beyond the size of grog-blossoms, and he would defy even Mr. Paxton himself to get London tulips any bigger than thimbles. He said that the beautiful climate of Brompton itself, which all the house-agents and physicians cried up as the Devonshire district of London, would only produce hollyhocks in the flower line, and mustard and cress in the vegetable ditto,—and from all he had seen in his time, he had come to the conclusion, that trying to get roses and lilies, this side of Richmond, was really the pursuit of flowers under difficulties; for it appeared to be as if Providence had originally designed that the soil of London should bear nothing beyond bricks and mortar. Though it was not so much the fault of the ground as it was of the cats—and them he could not, for the life of him, help looking upon as the young gardener’s worst companion—for as fast you put in the seed, just as fast would they scratch it up again; and, of course, nothing would satisfy the creatures but they must go lying in your beds of a night. Indeed, the Toms of London seemed, like young Love always to prefer sleeping among the roses. Now, he remembered, he told me, about the time when Walworth went mad about dahlias, and offered a prize of a hundred guineas for the finest specimen that could be grown within two miles of the Elephant and Castle,—he was sure any one might have heard the amateur gardeners firing at the cats, and the guns going off there of a night, for all the world like a review in Hyde-park; but all to no good—for, after all, the prize was carried off by a clever young gentleman, who had no garden at all, and grew the choicest specimen there was at the show in an old black tea-pot, out of his two pair back.
However, I wasn’t going to sit there all day hearing him try to persuade me against what I had set my heart and soul upon, and railing against everything just like an old East Indian with half a liver, for I could easily see that all my fine gentleman wanted was, to save himself the trouble of doing up the garden, and wished, of course, to take our money without doing a single thing for it; but I wasn’t going to encourage him standing all day long with his hands in his pockets—not I indeed. So when he found that I wasn’t quite such a stupid as he seemed to take me for, and was determined upon having the thing done, willy-nilly, then, of course, he must needs try his best to advise me to go to the expense of a lot of box-borders for the place. But I wouldn’t listen to it for a minute, for, as I very plainly told him, I was sure that oyster-shells would be quite good enough for us, especially as dear Edward was so fond of having a dozen or two of Natives before he went to bed of a night, and I knew that I should get a very pretty border out of his suppers in less than a fortnight.
However, upon second thoughts, it struck me that, whilst I was about it, I might just as well have a few really good plants put in, particularly as Mr. Dick Farden said he knew a florist in the neighbourhood, who would do the whole thing for a mere nothing for me, and attend to it afterwards, either by the day, month, or year, on the most reasonable terms. So, as I couldn’t see any great harm in hearing from Mr. Dick Farden’s friend himself what he might consider “a mere nothing,” I arranged in my own mind that the best way would be to let Farden call upon him, and send him round to me on his way down to deliver the letter I intended to write to the director (for there’s nothing but directors now-a-days) of the Servants’ Institution. Accordingly, having scribbled a note to the institution—saying that, as I was in want of a nurse, I should feel obliged if they would send one of their young men round to me as soon as possible, from whom I could learn the terms and advantages of the establishment—I told Mr. Dick Farden to take it to Oxford-street, and, while he was out, to run round and tell his friend the florist to call on me in the evening, so that I might talk over with him about the flowers.
When that precious beauty of a Dick Farden came back, he told me he had brought with him the gentleman I had sent him for, who, he said, had written down a few of the names of such articles as he thought would suit me, and which he could recommend, as they had all been in the nursery a long time. Of course, I imagined the stupid fellow was alluding to the maid I wanted for my little Kitty, and not to a pack of bothering flowers, as I afterwards found out, to my great horror; and there was I going on for upwards of twenty minutes asking all kinds of odd questions of the stranger, fully believing that he was the person from the Servants’ Institution, and not that trumpery friend of Mr. Dick Farden’s, who was in the gardening line.
When the man came in, I said to him, very naturally, “My man-servant tells me that you have brought with you a few of the names of such as you think will suit me. They have all been in the nursery a long time, I believe; and what kind of places have they been accustomed to?”
“Oh, a very nice place,” he replied; “about the same as yours might be, mum. They had a warmish bed, and have always been accustomed to be out in the open air.”
“Yes, I should want them to be out in the open air a great deal,” I answered, though at the time I couldn’t help fancying that it was very funny that the man should allude in particular to their warm beds. “Now I should like you to recommend me one,” I continued, “that’s healthy and strong, and likely to remain with me for some time, for it is so distressing to have to provide yourself with a new one every year.”
“So it is, mum,” he returned. “I think I know the very one you want, mum. It’s a remarkable fine colour, mum.”
“That certainly is a recommendation. I like them to look healthy,” I replied, thinking, of course, that the man was only talking about a nursery maid, and not of some trumpery rose he had got at home.
“It’s a very dark coloured one, mum; indeed, very nearly a black,” he answered; “and of a summer’s evening smells wonderful, I can assure you, mum.”