Scarlet and Hyssop: A Novel

by E. F. Benson

"Did you never look out for what seemed to you ideal, mother?" she asked.

"Yes, dear, once. When I was exactly fifteen I fell passionately in love with the Emperor of Germany, whom I had once seen at a distance. To marry him seemed to me ideal. But whether it would have been or not I was never privileged to know. He and I both married some one else. I was acutely miserable for at least a fortnight. But during that fortnight I learned something, which was that your time can be fully occupied in getting what you can get, without wasting your energy in longing for what you can't."

"Poor mother!" said Maud gravely; and in her voice Mrs. Brereton thought she could detect more of irony than simplicity.

They had no further conversation on the subject for the present, since during the next couple of hours Mrs. Brereton successfully settled a hundred details and arrangements that would have taken a less quick woman half a day to grapple with. The house stood some quarter of a mile from the river-bank, on the reach between Maidenhead and Bray, red-bricked and creeper-covered, but picturesque in a haphazard, bungalow manner, intolerably dank in the winter, when languid, foggy water covered the lower lawn, but ideally adapted for summer Sunday parties. It had long been left to moulder and mildew, but some ten years ago, while the Thames was still only a geographical expression, Mrs. Brereton, in a hunt for some place of the kind near London, but sufficiently remote not to be overrun, had lighted on it, and with her quick eye had seen how admirably it would suit her wants. Inside there were not more than a dozen bedrooms and two or three adequate reception-rooms; but the garden was exquisite, and had now under her guiding hand fulfilled rare possibilities.

A steep slope of grass, negotiable by three flights of stone steps, led from the gravel path, which bordered the house, on to the lawn, which lay in terraces towards the river, framed with intersections of box hedges, cut into pyramidal and geometric shapes, and bordered by vivid beds of flowers. The entrance of each of these lawns was in line with the centre of the house, and they communicated one with another by broad steps of grass. One was levelled for croquet, another was a rose-garden with a pergola running round it, while that nearest the house was during the summer chiefly occupied by garden and basket chairs. The whole front of the house, again, was, with its gravel path, capable of being roofed in with an awning, carpeted with rugs, and furnished for eating, drinking, card-playing, and other diversions not less diverting. Behind the framing of box hedge which encircled the lawn lay on each side a shrubbery of blossoming trees, lilacs and laburnums, and behind, again, tall elms and beeches shaded the paths that led to the meadow of untamed land below the lawn, and bordered the river itself, where weeping-willows trailed their slow-moving, slender fingers over the tarred roof of the boat-house. Here, also, Mrs. Brereton had caused to be erected a private bathing-place, dug out at great expense in the river. It was remarkable only for the fact that it had never been used, except once by Mr. Brereton by mistake.

Mildred had not been down here before during the spring, and as she was going to entertain next Sunday, and would not be able to get down again in the interval, it followed that a good deal of method and quickness were required to effect all that had to be done in a couple of hours. Like a wise woman, she knew that in those cases in which, as here, she was quite aware what she wanted, and only required it to be done, the best servants are those who will not be intelligent and have ideas of their own, but simply obey. Consequently she had, as gardeners, a staff of Parsifals, simple blameless fools, who moved tubs of geraniums to such places as she wished and to no others, who planted carnations in beds where she wished carnations to be planted, and did not execute fantasies of their own. The greenhouses which lay on the other side of the house were full and ready with plants to be bedded out, and for the first half-hour she was occupied in choosing exactly what she wanted in each bed. After that there was the upholsterer with his choice of canvases for the awning that lay along the length of the house, and the carpenter who was to erect a small wooden shelter which should be convenient for Bridge-players. Then came the choice of rugs, hangings, and furniture for the marquee which stood on the first lawn, as well as for the awning-shelter close to the house. Persian carpets had to be unrolled, spread out, and examined, the choice of chairs and tables had to be made, palms to be sought for the corners, a piano to be tuned, the croquet to be inspected and set up.

After an hour, indeed, it seemed as if chaos had resumed its reign, or that some half-dozen London drawing-rooms had been sacked and the contents strewn on the lawn. Here stood a great Chinese vase forlornly alone in the middle of the grass, here two Chippendale tables huddled together for company, here roll upon roll of Persian rugs were gradually creeping like a tide of many-coloured waters over the green, here was a stack of chairs, and here half a hundred lanterns with which the tent was lit. And in the middle of it all, triumphantly ruling chaos, stood Mrs. Brereton, never confused herself and never confusing others, bidding, forbidding, changing, confirming, as she directed simultaneously the struggling gardeners and an army of housemaids, at her best, as she always was, when a great deal of practical business had to be managed in a very short time.

"No, the croquet must be shifted to the right; it gives more margin," she was saying. "Just show them, Maud. The piano opposite the French window from the drawing-room, but it's no use putting it in till you have the carpets down. The scarlet cushions belong to the other sofa; no, there's no answer"—this to a footman with a telegram. "Of course, if there are no nasturtiums out yet it can't be helped. Yes, seven lanterns at least; the electrician must look to the wires, one on each of the supports; we shall dine there as well as lunch next Sunday if it is warm. Bridge-tables? Yes, in the new shelter, two of them, and one in the corner of the long awning. What's that matting doing? It belongs to the conservatory; put it back there. I shall want thick common baize under the rugs; they will get damp otherwise. The big flower-holder in the corner; no, more in the corner than that. Wolland's will send down two palms, one to go behind the piano, the other indoors in the drawing-room."

But out of chaos by such processes of evolution emerged order, and it was still an hour before sunset when they left again. Mrs. Brereton had to a high degree that most useful gift of being able to banish any one subject completely from her mind when she was occupied with another, and it was not till she was seated with Maud again in the carriage that the question which had occupied them so exclusively driving down reasserted itself. Even then she felt it was the better part of wisdom to let things be. Maud was clearly preoccupied, with what, it was impossible not to guess, and as she was, her mother knew, one who chose to make decisions for herself, she bridled her desire to know what was passing in her daughter's mind. She always found that conversation with Maud was difficult; to-day it was particularly so. But just as they stopped at the Grosvenor Square house this desire mastered her.