“The finest garden in the county!” Even allowing for the prejudices of possession, it was impossible to bestow such a title upon Yew Hedge in its present unkempt condition. The house had been unlet for two years, during which time the grass had grown coarse and rank, wallflowers and forget-me-nots were dying a lingering death in the borders, and nothing was coming on to take their place. It was not the first time that Peggy had given her mind to this subject, but so far she had not succeeded in finding a solution of the difficulty, nor had the suggestion of the village gardener met with her approval.
“It’s bedding-out as you want,” he had explained. “You must bed out. That’s the tastiest thing for those ’ere round beds, and the tidiest too. They last well on into the autumn, if it comes in no sharp frosts. There’s nothing like them for lasting!”
“Like what? Do you mean geraniums?”
“Ay, geraniums for sure, and calcies, and lobelias, and a nice little hedge of pyrethrum. Can’t do better than that, can yer? Geraniums in the centre,”—he drew a circle on the ground with the end of his stick, and prodded little holes here and there to illustrate his plan. “A nice patch of red, then comes yellar, then the blue, then the green. In circles or in rows, according as you please.”
“I seem to have seen it somewhere! I have certainly seen it,” mused Peggy solemnly, so solemnly, that the poor man took her words in good faith, and looked at her with wondering pity.
“I should say you ’ad! You couldn’t travel far without seein’ of ’em in the summer time. There’s nuthin’ else to see in a manner of speaking, for they all ’as ’em. ’Igh and low, gentle and simple.”
“Then I won’t!” quoth Peggy unexpectedly. “Henceforth, Bevan, when sightseers come to the neighbourhood, send them up to Yew Hedge to inspect the one garden in England which does not go in for bedding-out! If I want fireworks, I’ll have them in gunpowder on the fifth of November, but not in flowers if I know it! It’s an insult to Nature to rule a garden in lines and transform a bed into a mathematical figure!”
The old gardener looked at her more in sorrow than in anger, and shook his head dejectedly as he went back to his work. He had the gravest doubts about the sanity of a young lady who objected to “bedding-out;” but if Peggy gained no approval from him for her new-fangled notions, she reaped her reward in Rob’s unaffected delight, when the conversation was detailed for his benefit.
“Bravo, Mariquita!” he cried. “I recognise in you the instinct of the true gardener—a rare thing, let me tell you, to find in a woman. Women like show and colour, a big effect, rather than interesting detail, but I’m thankful to find you are an exception. Come over to-morrow and see my garden! I keep a corner for myself at the end of the shrubbery, and forbid any of the men to touch it, and I flatter myself I have some treasures you won’t find in any other garden in England. I brought them home from my travels, and have coaxed them to grow by looking after them myself and studying their little ways. They need a lot of care, and get sulky if they are not humoured, but it’s the whole interest of gardening to master these little eccentricities.”
“Just my sentiments!” cried Peggy; but when in due time Rob escorted her to see his precious garden, her face was blank with disappointment. Two straggling beds with a rockery filling up the corner, and scarcely a gleam of colour from one end to another! That at least was the effect from a distance, but as the proprietor pointed out his treasures, insignificant little blossoms were distinguishable among the greenery, and flowers the size of a threepenny piece were produced proudly from lurking-places and exhibited for admiration. They all came from some unheard-of spots at the other side of nowhere, had been reared with prodigious difficulty, and were of such rarity and value that the heads of public gardens had paid special pilgrimage to The Larches in order to behold them. Peggy’s eyebrows went up in a peak, and her face lengthened, but it was no use, she could not be enthusiastic, could not even affect an interest in the struggling little lives.