The Garden

by L. A. G. Strong

  Con straightened up. Leaning back his head, he sucked in his cheeks, and shot a gooseberry skin a prodigious distance.

  “Them’s good,” he observed in broad Dublin: and hit his chest a resounding blow with his great fist.

  Then, quite suddenly, as if in response to a signal, the bells of all the churches began to ring for evening prayer. Their notes, soft and golden, floated across on the long slanting beams of sunlight, seeming to hover in the garden, with its paths, its archways and hedges, the deep glowing colours of its flowers, as if becalmed there, too dreamily happy to go further. Dermot stood up very straight. This is Ireland, he said to himself. This is Granny’s garden. I shall want to remember this. I must learn it by heart.

  “A grand evening,” exclaimed Con, winking at him with enormous pleasure. He looked round. “We’ll have to be going. I see me Da on the stir, down there. It must be near on church time.”

  “Do you have to go to church twice a day?”

  “There’s no ‘have to’,” retorted Con severely. “We do go. I don’t much care for the church down here, though, I must say,” he added.

  “I don’t like it very much either,” said Dermot. He felt full of questions, but, in view of the understanding so happily established, he judged it wiser to keep quiet.

  Chapter VI

  About once a week, and preferably on a wet day, Dermot had tea with Bessie and Munny in the kitchen. On these occasions he had a boiled egg, which he ate at the smaller of the two kitchen tables, facing the wall, with the stove on his left, and the high wooden dresser on his right. Even with his back so turned to the world, he could gain information as to what was going on, albeit a little distorted, in the row of great bright dish-covers hanging above his head. The window swam, splendid and curvilinear, in every one of these, and nearer, mysteriously shadowed, like some big dusky mushroom, some brown top-heavy egg, swelled up himself, globular, eccentric, liable to strange sudden increase and decrease: with the figure of Bessie making slow semi-circular dips and swings behind him, as she passed across.

  Before tea was actually ready, there were a number of entrancing toys and objects of reverence for him to examine. Among the former was an old broken egg-beater. Dermot would get leave, unhook it from its place below the dish-covers, lean his stomach on top of it, and slowly turn the handle, causing the three bent blades to spin jerkily and protestingly around. Among the objects of reverence was Stumpy, Bessie’s old odd-purposes knife, which was so far worn down it had hardly any blade left: but a treasure, Bessie averred, worth more to her than she could say. There was also the parsley-cutter, a round short stick with four circular blades projecting all the way round it. This he was rarely allowed to handle, Bessie and Munny both declaring it to be very dangerous. Not to mention the rolling pins, and the special cork-and-string drawer in the dresser (with no handle, but a hole into which you thrust your finger). By the time he had paid his respects to each of these, his egg would be ready, with horn spoon, by request: Bessie would “wet the tea,” and she and Munny would take opposite ends of the uneven, white, grainy table. Sometimes Katie the seamstress would be there too, but Dermot did not care for her. One of a large, poor family, growing elderly, with little prospect of bettering her lot, she combined Christian fortitude with an expert sycophancy. Her known unselfishness did not recommend her to her patrons ; she begged for her relations, making resentment more difficult by depriving it of its full justification. When Katie was present, Dermot had to move down, and make room for her. Thus he was not opposite his favourite dish-cover, the biggest and brightest of them all. The meal was further spoiled for him by Katie’s continued thanksgivings for the good fortune which enabled her to partake of it. She supported these by naming, with lugubrious relish, those of her relatives and neighbours who would consider themselves abundantly blessed to see the half of it. This not only irritated Dermot ; it made him feel guilty. In the face of such cruel poverty, ought he not to collect and distribute what food he could? Mingled with dislike of the whining, sing-song voice was this new sense of responsibility, pressing heavily upon him, especially when he could not get to sleep. One night, his mother came in, and found him wide awake. He replied to her whispered questions, and the touch of her cool hand, with sudden tears, surprising himself more than her. She soothed his trouble: and evidently there was some talk in the family, with reverberations which reached the kitchen, for Katie next time maintained a martyred silence, relieving her emotion with no more than an occasional sniff. In the same week, Dermot heard a very unflattering description of her from Con and Eileen: but social conscience, once wakened, was not to be stifled by discrediting the alarum. Dermot was by nature generous, and though Bessie and Munny between them drew the moral from the wretched creatures, mere animated masses of rags and dirt, who were to be seen everywhere, even in the finest squares of Dublin, festering along the walls, he had from the first a real sense of poverty and misfortune.

  One evening, as he walked with Bessie and his nurse, taking a turn towards Glenageary before going to his bed, a poor man blessed him in the road.

  “Wouldn’t you like to give the poor man a penny?” prompted Bessie, in an eager whisper, as they went past.

  “Yes, of course. I didn’t understand. Did he want one?”

  He ran back after the man, and handed him the penny.

  “The blessing o’ God on ye, young sir. The blessing o’ God on ye.”

  The voice was hoarse: the unshaven face lit up, with a strange flash.

  “There’s me good boy.”

  They received him back with a flutter of praise.

  “I’d have given him my whole thirteen pennies, if I’d known,” announced Dermot, in entire sincerity. It seemed to him shocking that anyone should be so grateful for a single penny. He earned money, too, and plenty of it. All along one side of the garden grew irises, the long leaves of which concealed hundreds of snails. Dermot collected these, receiving the princely sum of a penny for two hundred. The reckoning, which he kept with pedantic accuracy, was left perforce to his honesty, for Granny had no mind to count the corpses in their reeking pail of salt and water.

  The necessity for making money before him, Dermot set to work with extra zeal. Soon snails became perceptibly fewer. Earnings dropped ; and it was charity, not avarice, which dictated the business communication presently discovered by Granny in the letter box.

  “Walmer Villa,

  “August the 27th.

  “DEAR GRANNY,

  “This is to say, about snails, that it cannot be done any longer at the price.

  “Your loving grandson,

  “DERMOT.”

  This letter, though he did not know it, earned Dermot the approval of his Grandpapa, who saw in it the beginnings of a sound business instinct. It pleased his Granny, for she knew why he wanted the money ; and a discussion took place in which it was decided that this, perhaps, would be the best way for him to work off the incubus “that foolish woman” Katie had placed upon him.

  So Dermot was summoned, and a fresh compact made, by a very business-like Granny, reducing the quantity. She had wished, in her easy rush of generosity, to make it a penny for fifty only, but the others overruled her. It was well that the money should still be hard to earn. The revised rate made it just possible for Dermot to maintain his income at the former figure.

  After kitchen tea, Dermot would be allowed to come and talk to Bessie in the scullery while she washed up—always provided he kept clear of what she called “her wicked elba’.” She did not like anyone at close quarters while she was working ; he was never allowed inside the kitchen when she was at the stove. As the scullery was small, he spent most of the time in the little, cool pantry, with its two windows: one, opening upon the next door garden, always a place of interest as the first home of Paddy-monkey: the other, more surprisingly, into Bessie’s bedroom. The convenience of this seemed to Dermot little short of providential.

  “Yes, asthore,” Bessie would reply, her voi
ce tremulous with the energy of her ministrations. “It’s the way I can keep me eye on them all.”

  And indeed, there were riches worth keeping an eye on. Strange, goodly objects swathed in white muslin, a palpable ham, a row of delicious jellies all upside down, cooling in moulds: dishes of cold, set gravy: large wet lettuces ; clean carrots: all manner of store. Neither really paused to wonder why a watchful eye was needed, for by the time Bessie was in her bedroom, all doors had been doubly fastened ; and the window which looked out upon the next door garden was protected by a wire grill, set deep inside the thick wall, able to hold at bay the wildest of marauding cats, the most insinuating of birds. There was nothing else to fear. Even though members of that ill-favoured race known to Granny and Grandpapa as “the corner-boys” broke into the orchard and the next door garden, and by some fiendish cunning succeeded in removing the grill, the whole aperture was too small to let them in, the distance between outside wall and shelf too great for the longest and leanest of avaricious arms. Still, the nearness of her treasures comforted Bessie, and she slept the sounder.

  “I do wake sometimes, and the light only starting to come in the little winda’. I do sit up on me arm, and look through, and there they all are, safe and sound, answering back to me, and the birds all starting to twitter in the garden, and I know all’s well.”

  Dermot’s quick imagination fixed upon the picture. He could see the pale light filtering in, and hear the birds ; he could get up joyously, after an hour’s more sleep, to see the first splashes of sunlight on the whitewashed larder wall, and know that another summer day was opening before him. Not for some years did he come to wonder if a bedroom ventilated solely by a small window opening into a place where food was kept might be the ideal arrangement for food or bedroom. He found, then, that the question, so worded, had never occurred to his mother at all. She could never bring a detached eye, from the England into which she had married, to bear upon the only home she could remember.

  Bessie’s room, once visited, was less interesting than it looked through the pantry window. It had a curious dank smell, all its own, not human at all, something, but not quite, like the smell of a little country church. Nowhere else in the world did Dermot ever find its equal. The room was bare, and as void of colour—walls, carpet, furniture, bed—as a room well could be. Yet it was somehow companionable, for the short times Dermot penetrated to it: times when Bessie was changing her boots, or getting her shawl, to go for a turn round the garden in the evening. In the top left hand drawer of the chest of drawers lived Bessie’s treasures: her everyday rosary, of pale, bony, coffee-coloured beads, and her Sunday best, with elaborate beads of carved black ebony. In the cross of this was a view of St. Peter’s, Rome. You held it up to one eye, keeping your hand over the other, and there it was, clear, magnified, and rather yellow. In the biggest bead, likewise equipped with a spy-hole, was a picture of the Sacred Heart. Dermot shied off from this: it distressed him, its suggestion of anatomy recalling a crushed mouse in the garden, whose bright protruding insides had fetched him back, several times, to gaze at them in sick fascination.

  Another amusement, after tea, was to play with Pucker and her kitten by the fire. The little animal was becoming very active. It ran about the garden, always with a suggestion of vagueness, as if it were blown off its course by odd gusts of wind. Its hind legs were the stronger, and scampered to such purpose that it often arrived at its destination sideways, or had to pull up and start again. Its tail had not passed the inexpressive state of babyhood, when it pointed away and upwards, and came to a sharp point, like a little pig’s. Pucker, delighted to come in to the fire, would lie luxuriously on her side, stretching out her long young legs, and accepting sleepily the caresses and praises of the company. In this state she was often bothered by her offspring, who made attacks upon her from unexpected angles, disturbing her dignity and her repose, if not her lazy good-nature. Dermot would do her a service here, by diverting the kitten’s attention to a cork on the end of a string. The little animal would spend perhaps twenty minutes in pursuit of this ; then it would trot to its mother, mew, curl up at her side, and fall instantly alseep. As it grew stronger and more expert with the cork, Dermot would roll it over, and tickle its soft little stomach, feeling with delight the vigorous hind legs scampering and kicking to drive away his hand. The kitten now asserted its personality in all directions: even Paddy had to submit. Small though it was, it showed great skill in eluding capture, and understood already the limits of the monkey’s chain.

  Dermot had a particular reason for rejoicing to see its vigour. One day, when it had not long been able to walk, he was carrying it in his arms, and accidentally dropped it. Instinct made it land upon its feet, but the height was too great, and the little creature, shocked and shaken, crept away into hiding under an empty box. Sick with fear and compassion, Dermot walked about the garden. For a quarter of an hour, perhaps, he was miserably unable to go near and see how the kitten fared. Maybe he would find it mewing, in pain, or dead. At last, able to bear it no longer, calling himself a coward, he went and lifted up the box. The kitten was sitting in a tiny bunch, with its feet tucked underneath it. It looked up at him trustfully, the sky shining blue in its eyes. He picked it up, kissed it, and fondled it, almost wild with relief: but there was still the fear that it might presently develop symptoms, and he did not dare speak of the accident to anyone. Now, however, the kitten’s vitality was proof that it had taken no harm. As the weeks went by, it grew exceeding bold, and, being no respecter of persons, had the extreme hardihood to ambush Grandpapa, as he walked up the garden, and jump out upon his trouser leg.

  “Gracious sakes above !” the old man exclaimed ; and, as soon as he recovered his breath, he delivered a homily to the kitten, which stood, mewing meekly and soundlessly before him. But in a day or so he had come to like the game, and would peer good-humouredly about, in order to spot the ambush beforehand, and be the more emphatically surprised at it. The kitten would follow him a long way down the paths: and Bessie, who always retired reverently to the hedge on the kitchen garden side as soon as “the Master” appeared, would hear him talking to it, and smile happily to herself.

  The stroll with Bessie before bedtime became a nightly event for Dermot. He looked forward to it throughout the day with steady happiness. They did not talk much. Bessie walked in front, for the most part, humming to herself, and taking in the sights and scents of the garden. She walked all down the right hand side, stopping to fondle the tall fronds of the asparagus. She pulled up her heavy skirts, always with the same gesture, to mount the stone steps to “the lawn” in front of the summer-house. She walked near the laburnum, preferring always in the same place to duck her head, and lean to one side, rather than to walk a yard further away and avoid these necessities. Right down beside the meadow to the very end she walked, stopping at a bunch of mint: and invariably she plucked from it a leaf, which she rubbed between her hands. She was a little, dark, plump woman, with bright sharp eyes, and a vivacious manner. Mystery attended her, in the form of some misfortune or affliction never defined, but always referred to in the household as “her cross, poor soul.” All acknowledged that she bore it with astonishing fortitude. Indeed, to see her abroad on these late August evenings, one could divine nothing but a quiet happiness: and she hummed incessantly. The humming did not disturb Dermot. He followed a few steps behind her, looking everywhere: at the houses of Glenageary, their red brick softened by the deepening sunlight: at the great line of the Dublin mountains, turning slowly to purple from dark blue: at the trees, heavy with their foliage, feeling relief in the cool oncoming of night: at the low, sleepy cottage roofs towards the west, with smoke ascending from one or two of their chimneys, smoke faëry and beautiful, the light flooding through it, against a dark belt of trees: at the flowers, turning themselves inside out, it seemed, to give forth the last richness of their colour before they closed for sleep. Far away somewhere, in the meadows, a cow was mooing: and the red-hot-po
ker flowers, standing up straight and proud, glowed magnificently against the shadow of the hedge.

  “I used to be afraid of the garden, Bessie. I’m not, when I come with you.”

  “Sure, why would you be afraid of it, Master Dermot, dear. There’s nothing to hurt ye.”

  “I was—I was afraid of the wild cats.”

  “The cats.” Bessie’s voice was dreamy, far away. “Sure, the cats wouldn’t touch ye.”

  “I thought they were fierce cats.”

  “Ah no. If you’d leave them alone.”

  “All the same, I think I should still be a bit afraid, Bessie, by myself.”

  “Sure, you shouldn’t. I come down here, many’s the time, all these years, and I never seen anything to hurt me.”

  Dermot pondered.

  “But then, you’re grown up, and that’s different,” he said.