eve carfax read james canterton’s letter at breakfast, and her mother, who like many passive people, was vapidly inquisitive, wanted to know when the letter had come, why it had been written, what it said, and what it did not say.
eve was a little flushed, and ready to fall into a reverie while looking along a vista of sudden possibilities. this frank and straightforward letter had brought a flutter of exultation into her life.
“mr. canterton wants me to do some flower pictures for him.”
“how nice, dear! and shall you?”
“of course—if i can.”
“it must have been our subscription to——”
“mother, is it likely?”
“i am sure mrs. canterton was most charming. is he going to pay you for——”
“he doesn’t say anything about it.”
“he might not think it quite nice to say anything—just at first.”
“i really don’t know why it shouldn’t be nice to mention a thing that we all must have. he wants me to go and see him.”
eve set off for fernhill with a delightful sense of exhilaration. she was in a mood to laugh, especially at the incident of yesterday, and at the loss of those two half-crowns that had seemed so tragic and depressing. this might be her first big bit of luck, the beginning of a wider, finer life for which she yearned. she was amused at her mother’s idea about mrs. canterton. mrs. canterton indeed! why—the flow of her thoughts was sharply arrested, and held back by the uprising of a situation that suddenly appeared before her as something extraordinarily incongruous. these two people were married. this fussy, sallow-faced, fidgeting egotist, and this big, meditative, colour-loving man. what on earth were they doing living together in the same house. and what on earth was she herself doing letting her thoughts wander into affairs that did not concern her.
she suppressed the curious feeling of distaste the subject inspired in her, took a plunge into a cold bath of self-restraint, and came out close knit and vigorous. eve carfax had a very fastidious pride that detested anything that could be described as vulgarly curious. she wanted no one to finger her own intimate self, and she recoiled instinctively from any tendency on her own part towards taking back-door views of life. she was essentially clean, with an ideal whiteness that yet could flush humanly. but the idea of contemplating the soiled petals of other people’s ideals repelled her.
eve entered the fernhill nurseries by the great oak gates that opened through a high hedge of arbor vitæ. she found herself in a large gravelled space, a kind of quadrangle surrounded by offices, storerooms, stables, and packing sheds, all built in the old english style of oak, white plaster, and red tiles. the extraordinary neatness of the place struck her. it was like a big forecourt to the mysteries beyond.
she had her hand on the office bell when canterton came out, having seen her through the window. he was in white flannels, and wearing a straw hat that deepened the colour of his eyes and skin.
“good morning! we both appear to be punctual people.”
he was smiling, and looking at her attentively.
“it was good of you to come up at once. i left it open. i think it would be a good idea if i took you over the whole place.”
she answered his smile, losing a momentary shyness.
“i should like to see everything. do you know, mr. canterton, you have set me up on the high horse, and——”
“well?”
“i don’t want to fall off. i have been having thrills of delightful dread.”
“i know; just what a man feels before an exam., when he is pretty sure of himself.”
“i don’t know that i am sure of myself.”
“if you can paint other things as you painted that rose, i don’t think there is any need for you to worry.”
the quiet assurance of his praise sent a shiver of exultation through her. what an encouraging and comforting person he was. he just intimated that he believed you could do a thing very well, and the thing itself seemed half done.
“then i’ll show you the whole place. i’m a bit of an egotist in my way.”
“it’s only showing someone what you have created.”
he took her everywhere, beginning with what he called “the administrative department.” she saw the great glass-houses, the stacks of bracken for packing, the piles of ash and chestnut stakes, the shed where three old men spent their time making big baskets and hampers, the rows and rows of frames, the packing and dispatch sheds, the seed room, the little laboratory, with its microscopes and microtome and shelves of bottles, the office where several clerks were constantly at work.
canterton was apologetic.
“i have a craze for showing everything.”
“it gives one insight. i like it.”
“it won’t tire you?”
“i think i am a very healthy young woman.”
he looked at the fresh face, and at the lithe though fragile figure, and felt somehow that the june day had an indefinable perfume.
“i should like to show you some of the young conifers.”
they were wonderful trees with wonderful names, quaint, solemn, and diminutive, yet with all the dignity of forests patriarchs. they grew in groves and companies, showing all manner of colours, dense metallic greens, soft blues, golds, silvers, greys, green blacks, ambers. each tree had beauties and characteristics of its own. they were diminutive models of a future maturity, solemn children that would be cedars, cypresses, junipers, pines and yews.
they delighted eve.
“oh, the little people, ready to grow up! i never knew there were such trees—and such colours.”
he saw the same look in her eyes as he had seen in the rosery, the same tenderness about the mouth.
“i walk about here sometimes and wonder where they will all go to.”
“yes, isn’t it strange.”
“some day i want to do a book on trees.”
“do you? what’s the name of that dear japanese-looking infant there?”
“retinospora densa. you know, we nurserymen and some of the botanists quarrel about names.”
“what does it matter? i tried to study botany, but the jargon——”
“yes, it is pretty hopeless. i played a joke once on some of our botanical friends; sent them a queer thing i had had sent from china, and labelled it cantertoniana gloria in excelsis. they took it quite seriously.”
“the dears!”
laughter passed between them, and an intimate flashing of the eyes that told how the joy of life welled up and met. they wandered on through acres of glowing maples, golden privets and elders, purple leaved plums, arbutus, rhododendrons, azaleas, and all manner of flowering shrubs. in one quiet corner an old gardener with a white beard was budding roses. elsewhere men were hoeing the alleys between the straight rows of young forest trees, poplars, birches, elms, beeches, ilexes, mountain ashes, chestnuts, and limes. there were acres of fruit trees, acres of roses, acres of the commoner kind of evergreens, great waves of glooming green rolling with a glisten of sunlight over the long slopes of the earth. eve grew more silent. she was all eyes—all wonder. it seemed futile to exclaim when there was so much beauty everywhere.
they came at last to a pleasaunce that was the glory of the hour, an herbaceous garden in full bloom, with brick-paved paths, box edging, and here and there an old tree stump or a rough arch smothered with clematis, or honeysuckle. delphiniums in every shade of blue rose like the crowded and tapering flèches of a mediæval city. there were white lilies, gaudy gaillardias blazing like suns, campanulas, violas, foxgloves, snapdragons, mauve erigeron, monkshood, english iris, and scores of other plants. it was gorgeous, and yet full of subtle gradations of colour, like some splendid persian carpet in which strange dyes merged and mingled. bees hummed everywhere. old red brick walls, half covered with various kinds of ivy, formed a mellow background. and away on the horizon floated the blue of the surrey hills.
eve stood motionless, lips slightly apart.
“mr. canterton!”
“you like it?”
“am i to paint this?”
“i hope so.”
“let me pour out my humility.”
he laughed gently.
“oh, you can do it!”
“can i? and the old walls! i should not have thought the place was so old.”
“it isn’t. i bought my bricks. some old cottages were being pulled down.”
“thank god, sometimes, for money!”
she stood a moment, her chin raised, her eyes throwing long, level glances down the walks.
“mr. canterton, let me do two or three trial sketches before you decide anything.”
“just as you like.”
“please tell me exactly what you want.”
“i want you to begin here, and in the rosery. you see this book of mine is going to be a big thing, a treasure house for the real people who want to know. i shall need portraits of individual flowers, and studies of colour effects during the different months. i shall also want illustrations of many fine gardens that have been put at my service. that is to say, i may have to ask you to travel about a little, to paint some of the special things, such as the ryecroft dutch garden, and the italian gardens at latimer.”
as he spoke the horizon of her life seemed to broaden before her. it was like the breaking through of a winter dawn when the grey crevices of the east fill with sudden fire. everything looked bigger, more wonderful, more alluring.
“i had no idea——”
he was watching her face.
“well?”
“that it was to be such a big thing.”
“it may take me two or three more years. i have allowed myself five years for the book.”
she drew in her breath.
“mr. canterton, i don’t know what to say. and i don’t think you realise what you are offering me. just—life, more life. but it almost frightens me that you should think——”
his eyes smiled at her understandingly.
“paint me a few trial pieces. begin with one of the borders here, and a rose bed in the rosery that i will show you. also, give me a study of trees, and another of rocks and plants in the rock garden.”
“i will begin at once.”
he looked beyond her towards the blue hills.
“as to the terms between us, will you let me write you a letter embodying them?”
“yes.”
“you can have an agreement if you like.”
she answered at once.
“no. i think, somehow, i would rather not. and please don’t propose anything till you have seen more of what i can do.”
canterton led the way towards the rosery to show her the roses he wanted her to paint, and in passing through one of the tunnels in the yew hedge they were dashed into by a child who came flying like a blown leaf. it was eve who received the rush of the impetuous figure. her hands held lynette to save her from falling.
“hallo!”
lynette’s face lifted to hers with surprise and laughter, and a questioning shyness. eve kept her hold for the moment. they looked at each other with an impulse towards friendliness.
“lynette, old lady!”
“daddy, miss vance has gone off——”
“pop? miss carfax, let me introduce my daughter. miss lynette canterton—miss carfax.”
eve slid her hands from lynette’s body, but the child’s hands clung and held hers.
“i’m so sorry. i hope it didn’t hurt? i don’t think i’ve seen you before.”
“well, we rushed at each other when we did meet.”
“is daddy showing you the garden?”
“yes.”
“my name’s lynette—not like linnet, you know, but lyn-net.”
“and my name’s eve—just eve.”
“who was made out of adam’s rib. poor mr. adam! i wonder whether he missed it?”
they all laughed. lynette kept hold of one of eve’s hands, and held out her other one to canterton.
“daddy, do come down to the wilderness. i want to build a wagwim.”
“or wigwam?”
“i like wagwim better. do come.”
“miss canterton, i am most seriously occupied.”
she tossed her hair, and turned on eve.
“you’ll come too, miss eve? now i’ve invited you, daddy will have to come. ask him.”
eve looked at canterton, and there was something strange in the eyes of both.
“mr. canterton, i am requested to ask you——”
“i surrender. i may as well tell you, miss carfax, that very few people are invited into the wilderness. it is fairyland.”
“i appreciate it. lynette, may i come and build a wagwim with you?”
“yes, do. what a nice voice you’ve got.”
“have i?”
eve blushed queerly, and was intimately conscious of canterton’s eyes looking at her with peculiar and half wondering intentness.
“i’m going to have dinner there. mother is out, and miss vance is going to guildford by train. and sarah has given me two jam tarts, and some cheese straws, and two bananas——”
canterton tweaked her hair.
“that’s an idea. i’m on good terms with sarah. we’ll have some lunch and a bottle of red wine sent down to the wilderness and picnic in a wagwim, if the wagwim wams by lunch time.”
“come along—come along, miss eve! i’ll show you the way! i’m so glad you like wagwims!”
so these three went down to the wilderness together, into the green light of the larch wood, and into a world of laughter, mystery and joy.
