Isabella walked on, steeped, half drugged in the scents, which rose like incense on all sides. There were men working here and there, bronzed Italian lavoranti, who uncapped to Madonna as she passed, and felt the sweet place sweeter for her presence. She knew all its intricacies and details—the sheds for raising seed, the pergolas, the nurseries, the sunk tanks of water alive with wriggling gnat-larvæ, the little gleaming channels interlacing all. There was something about the riotous profusion of the spot, so greenly remote from the formal alleys and studied perspectives of Colorno, which touched a strange nerve in her as of some shadowy remembrance, the mystery of antique forgotten things. She loved it; and its owner and presiding genius, whom the marquise patronised and detested, was a prime favourite of hers.
Wending her way, everywhere by great bushes of lavender and rosemary, she came presently upon the old gardener himself, busy near the laboratory, a central bungalow where were achieved the processes of macération and enfleurage—otherwise the capture and storage of the world of fugitive perfumes which diffused themselves around. Aquaviva carried in his sinewy arms a pile of glazed stretchers, like small window sashes, or, a more appropriate simile in these days, like large photographic printing frames, and, seeing Isabella, he paused with a sardonic pucker of the lips.
“Ah!” said he, “I could have sworn it. A right morning for gadflies.”
His torso was like a lean-bellied fiddle, the string which bound his green baize apron round his waist helping the resemblance. Great bent shoulders and thin bent shanks had he, with enormous shoes to his feet and an enormous aquiline nose to his face. His expression was by no means truckling or conciliatory; he knew his value with the dames and exquisites of Parma.
Isabella laughed: “O, grandfather!” she said, “is that the way to greet your princess? See how I sting you with honey for your rudeness.”
“Hey,” said the old man, “hoping to make me drop my frames? But beware. It is the treasure of a dukedom I carry within them.”
She stretched up, and pulled at a frame, trying to peep.
“What is it, avolo mio? Is it lilies, jasmine, violets?”
“It is not for the common ruck. I tell you it is of the ducal brand—the essence of all flowers in one.”
“It is tuberose.”