Perhaps it was here she met young Hervey; perhaps it was here Lord Bois found them, cutting initials on one of those very trees, G. H. and P. B. and two hearts with an arrow through them. Ah! then the smile Sir Peter Lely painted faded to a quiver of the lips. Lord Bois looked at the trembling mouth and his glance flew to the initials on the tree. “So this is why, madam,” I could hear him say, “you took to sylvan glades like a timid deer; so this is why you coaxed me up to London, leaving you alone—but, not unprotected.” I could see his sneering bow to young Hervey—a bow that was a blow.
And all the while I was only seeing with the Stone Dog’s eyes. There was just the rippling sea of wild Hyacinths, the pale gold of the Primroses, the innocent white of the wood Anemones—like fairies’ washing—and the purple haze of bursting buds.
Once the Stone Dog had looked along an avenue and had seen a vista of Tanglewood Court, and smooth terraces, and bright beds of flowers, with Lords and Ladies walking up and down, taking the air, discussing fruit trees, and Dutch gardening, and glass hives for bees. Now, he saw nothing but the woods all brimming with Spring flowers: a garden made by Nature.
And then I thought I saw one Bluebell detach itself from its fellows and come wafting to us with a fairy’s message, but it was a bright blue butterfly who sailed, rejoicing in the sun. Somehow the butterfly reminded me of the Lady Perpetua, soft and smiling, and fluttering in the sun: as if she had returned to her woods in that guise to hover near the tree, the trysting-place, on which the initials were cut.
I said as much to the Stone Dog, but received no answer.
“Stone Dog,” I said, “England is a very wonderful place: every park, every field, every little wood is full of stories. I cannot pass a park gate without thinking of the men and women who have been through it. What a Garden of History the whole place is! I’ll warrant a Roman has kissed a Saxon girl in this very place, for there’s a camp not far off—perhaps you have seen twinkling ghostly watch-fires gleaming in the night. Young Hervey’s dead, but you never saw him die; they fought in the garden on the smooth grass, and the story goes that he slipped, and Bois ran him through as he lay on the grass. What flowers grow over his head now? And Perpetua is dead. They say she ran out and saw her lover dead, and bared her breast to her husband’s sword. The grass was wet with her blood when you saw Lord Bois ride madly down the drive, through the gates, and out into the open country. The smile Sir Peter Lely painted is carved by the hand of Death. She was only a girl, after all. Who places flowers on her grave?”
Meanwhile the sun shone on the Bluebells, and struck odd leaves of the trees, picking them out with a fanciful finger till they shone like green fires.
Then the idea came to me that this wood held the spirit of Lady Perpetua fast for ever. The Bluebells were the satin sheen of her dress (blue like the Lely portrait), the red-brown autumn leaves and the dead Bracken were her hair; the Wind Flowers, like her body linen; the Violets, her eyes; the Primroses, her breath; the Cowslips, her golden ornaments; the Daisy petals like her pure white skin. A gentle breeze stirred all the flowers together, and—behold! there she was, alive. The wood was yielding up her secret, as woods and flowers will do to those who love them.
So the Stone Dog and I had a bond of sympathy between us, the bond of old memories, and the wood united us with its store of romance and beauty: and he who loves wild flowers and woods, as well as walled gardens and trees clipped in images, may gather store of pictures for his mind.
So the afternoon passed in this pleasant manner, and I took opportunity to speak once more to the Stone Dog before the woodcutter’s children came home from school to spoil our peace.