CHAPTER XIX
MICHAELMAS DAISY AND ROSE-BUGS
A great hedge, cut to resemble the old-fashioned pillar-and-ball entrance to a driveway, welcomed one into the beginning of the gardens. Beyond the hedge the path curved abruptly, and a six-foot wall with high terraces beyond filled the view. Blue masses of sentinel-like larkspur in mounting tiers gave the first greeting. Here was the evidence of an intelligent planning to capture the eye right at the beginning and make one eager to follow the curving path to see what would be beyond. Instinctively Richard stopped and uttered the prophesied word, “Beautiful!” The thought of “Grapes fust!” never intruded.
At the curve the walk widened into a little circle of violet phlox, walled-up on all sides except towards the sun and towards the narrow arched opening that led farther on. The walls were not high and were almost concealed by the climbing blue clematis; beyond them was slightly higher ground crowded with blue harebell, and farther back a battalion of Chinese larkspur. Blue snapdragon—giants, every one—sprang out here and there, and a bevy of smaller border flowers filled in the scheme—all blue. An old-fashioned hickory settle invited one to sit and enjoy; and near it had been planted nests of the more fragrant plants, and borders of blue campanula, Jacob’s ladder and creeping phlox.
Richard sat on the settle and admired. “Beautiful!” he exclaimed again and again. It was a bower of blue—blue and purple and violet and lavender and red-blue; but nothing clashed or interfered with the dominant cerulean note; there was enough rich green to separate what would otherwise be jarring shades.
What a puzzling mute Jerry Wells could be when she chose! In all their chatty hours together there had been hardly a word about this; and undoubtedly here was but the vestibule of the gardens. “Red Jacket” should be discovered for oneself, she always said. Well, it was better so; half the delight in life is the unanticipated joys.
Green shrubs blocked the view through the arch, but one turn—the garden was a maze of turns—and behold, a diminutive bridge and a slender spring-fed rivulet, and beyond, in clumps and patches raised at various elevations by hidden walls, blooms of delicate pink: Canterbury bells, hollyhock, phlox, gladiolus, lupine, foxglove.
The pink bower was larger than the blue and was, therefore, not to be taken in at once. Curving paths appeared leading to a series of surprises, a sward of rest-harrow here and a bevy of tall canna there, but no alien colour had been permitted to spoil the general tone.
Just over a hedge Richard heard voices and the light-hearted laugh of negroes at work. Someone in authority was giving directions; it sounded like Jerry’s voice, so he chanted the family song, the two musical notes, the fifth and the third of the scale, “Hel-lo!”
The song came back, softly wafted over the green barrier, “Hel-lo!”—the “lo” held until it diminished into a whisper.
Eagerly he sought a path, singing the call occasionally as he missed his way and getting the response every time. The path that he chose dropped down broad flagstone steps and then rose. He had completed a half-circle before he came upon a hillside of yellow blooms, gaillardia, black-eyed Susans, and dahlia. They fairly shouted at him, especially the yellow daisies, but he did not see them at all. “Hel-lo!” he sang in his flutest tones; and “Hel-lo!” came back almost at his feet. He found himself standing on a six-foot wall at the top of a set of narrow stone steps; below him Mrs. Wells was engaging the attention of several negroes with wheelbarrows, spades and a whole galaxy of garden tools.