CHAPTER IX
A littlecomedy was played here yesterday, here in the garden—in our garden. I call it ours for, as the days go by in the company of Cruikshank and his Bellwattle, there grows more and more into my mind the belief that theirs is the only way of living. Wherefore, in my vainest imaginings, I share the garden with them, calling it ours to give a flavor of reality to the conceit.
I was not present when this little play was enacted, nor indeed should I have perceived the full comedy of it had I been there. Bellwattle, Dandy and I were away round the first head of the cliffs where the gulls were wheeling, for ever wheeling, up against the wind.
Cruikshank told us about it afterwards. He was working, it appears, in the garden—when, indeed, is he not? There is so much for a gardener to be doing at this time of the year; indeed, there is so much for him to be doing that I come to think he is one of the busiest men I know.
"The earth is a bed," Cruikshank said to me once, "that always needs making."
I suppose he is right. The princesses who sleep there till the morning of summer calls them to get up, show all the tenderness of flesh that betokens a real princess. Their beds must be made every day. One pea beneath innumerable mattresses would bruise their delicate skins. What wonderful employment then, to be master of the bed-chamber, mistress of the robes, comptroller of the household—all rolled into one—and this to princesses whom you believe to be the most beautiful in the world.
Cruikshank, therefore, was making the beds, shaking the coverlet of earth so lightly as never to disturb the sleepers beneath. It was while he was working, he said, that he became aware of the approach of General Ffrench. The old gentleman came up the little drive from the gate that opens on to the road. He was walking timidly, as though he knew that at such a time in the morning it were an intrusion to visit one's friends. Much of that military bearing of his was gone. His shoulders were bent and his head thrust forward as he glanced suspiciously about him.
For a while Cruikshank watched him unperceived; then, when at length the old gentleman saw he was observed, he tried to straighten himself, to bring into his appearance that heartiness of manner characteristic of his whole bearing as a soldier.
"Good morning, good morning!" said he.
"Good morning," replied Cruikshank, adding an oath of annoyance below his breath as he went on working. These morning visits were very frequent affairs, and I suppose even gardeners object to interruption in their work.
"I just came up," said the old gentleman, "to have a talk with your friend—let me see, did I catch his name rightly the other day?"
"Bellairs," said Cruikshank, shortly. I can guess how he said it. There is that suggestion about his manner when he is making his beds that you might expect to find in any master of a bed-chamber. He moves, as it were, with a finger to his lips, as though he feared the faintest disturbance to the sleep of his princesses. When he consents to speech it is abrupt, and uncomfortably discouraging. The General, I can imagine, however, is not built of that fine fibre which can appreciate it.
"Oh, yes! Bellairs!" said he, overjoyed to find that his memory still served him well. "I just came up to have a talk with him. He was interested the other day in hearing that I was up in Dublin when we received the old Queen."
"He's out," said Cruikshank. "You'll find him round the cliffs with my wife."
Doubtless Cruikshank hoped that that would make an end of the matter. But he knows nothing of human beings, young or old. I could have told him differently. I know the type so well. My own father is one of them. His resources for wasting time are infinite. No doubt the same could be said of me. I am a lazy devil. But at least it is my own time I waste. With such men as my father and General Ffrench their sin is that they waste the precious time of others.
To be told, then, that I was out, to be given careful instructions as to where I was, had no power to move the old gentleman one step upon the journey to find me. He was out upon that war-path which all garrulous old men pursue. It mattered but little to him who was his victim. And besides all that, it was Cruikshank really whom he wanted to see; wherefore, altering his position from one foot to the other, he began on another score.
For how long he dragged the weight of the conversation from one point to another I do not know. It must have been entirely by his own exertions. I can conceive the sort of help that Cruikshank would give him. He brought it at last, however, to the subject he desired. He spoke of the forcing of plants and then the forcing of fruits. He spoke quite eloquently, Cruikshank told us, but there was a strain of nervousness in all that he said which even my gardener, my comptroller of the household, was constrained to notice.
"I felt," said Cruikshank to us afterwards, "as if something were coming."
He was quite right. Something did come. Out of the depths of his side pockets the old gentleman produced four partially ripe tomatoes.
"Well, you don't believe in forcing," said he; "but what do you think of these? We forced these in our little green-house. Quite a number of them." And he handed the whole lot into Cruikshank's hands.
"But why did you pick them before they were ripe?"
"Oh, they'll ripen," said he, easily; "you put them in a warm room in the window where they'll catch the sun. You'll be able to eat them in less than a week."
Now, there was a delicacy of insinuation about all this, far more delicate and subtle than the little girl with the basket of vegetables in one hand and a gift of flowers in the other. Those tomatoes were the property of Mrs. Quigley. Was this a present from her? Was he meant to keep them and ripen and eat them? Was he to buy them, giving the money for their purchase then and there? What, in the name of Heaven, was he to do?
Cruikshank is no hand at these delicate situations. He just stood, so he told us, with his hands full of tomatoes, as much at a loss for action as he was for words.
"They seem very good," said he, at last, "but isn't it a pity to have picked them before they were quite ripe?" And then he was for handing them back, for getting rid of them as quickly as he could.
But the old gentleman was far too wary for that. He took a step backwards. He even went so far as to thrust his hands deep into his pockets.
"No, no, you keep them," said he, "put 'em in a window, they'll ripen. But don't say anything to my sister about them. She agrees with you. She doesn't like 'em picked before they're ripe. Don't say anything to her. I only saw them this morning, and knowing you'd got a visitor I thought they might be just a little—you know—dainty. You don't get tomatoes, not fresh like those, at this time of the year."
And then, standing back yet another step, his head on one side regarding the magnificence of his gift, he paused.
"How much did you give him for them?" we asked, when he had told us so far.
"My God!" said Cruikshank. "I didn't give him anything. He'd brought them as a gift. I suppose he'd stolen them out of his sister's hot-house, but I couldn't refuse them on that score. It would have offended him still more if I'd offered him payment."
I picked up one of the tomatoes that was lying on the table. It was as hard as a bullet.
"What a pity it is," said I, "that you don't study human nature. He was badly in need of some money."
"He's run out of cartridges," said Bellwattle. "I'm very glad you didn't give him anything. Now he can't shoot the rabbits down in Power's field."
"Is he as poor as that?" I asked.
"Lord, yes," said Cruikshank. "I've known him save up his last cartridge for days."
"I expect that's it, then," said I. "He's run out of cartridges."
Bellwattle put her arm round Cruikshank's neck.
"You've saved twelve little bunny rabbits," said she.
"But I haven't," he replied. "I can see it now. When he was going, he stopped just before he got to the gate and called out that he was going to the post.
"'Can you lend me a shilling?' he said; 'I've forgotten my purse.'"
"And you lent it to him!" cried Bellwattle.
Cruikshank nodded his head.
"You'd better count that given," said I. "It was the price of the tomatoes."