The Wonderful Garden or The Three Cs

‘There’s something written at the end,’ said Caroline, who was still examining the book; ‘I’d forgotten about that.’

And there was. In very faint brown ink. They had to carry it quite outside the front door (which was, as you know, at the side), to get light enough to be sure that they could not read it because it was written in Latin. And when they did get enough light, they saw that it was in English, and that they could. The writing ran:

‘On the seventh day of the seventh month, and at the seventh hour, let the seed be sown. Seven seeds and no more for the one sowing. In the garden of peace let them be sown, which same is the seventh garden of the world. Let him that would sow, take heed to bathe him seven times in fair water, and let him sow with his face set eastward, with silence at the lips and, at the heart, faith in all good things and the love of all things beautiful. After seven weeks the blossom shall appear. Then let him who sowed the seed eat of the flower. The seed of the F. of H.D.’

‘What?’ cried Rupert.

‘That’s all,’ said Caroline; ‘it stops short like that. There isn’t any more.’

There had been more, but some one had scratched the rest out.

‘With a knife or scissors,’ explained Caroline. ‘Oh, what a pity!’

‘I say,’ Rupert was beginning, but Charles interrupted.

He had stooped to look up under the page that Caroline was fingering. ‘There’s some more; look, turn over!’

There was.

‘Until it be granted none knoweth his heart’s most dear desire. But after it is granted he perceiveth that so and not otherwise was and must ever have been the true Desire of the Heart.’

‘That’s true, at any rate,’ said Charlotte. ‘I was just wondering what my heart’s desire really was. Suppose you thought it was going to be a new paint-box, but the flower knew better, and it turned out that elephants was what you really wanted?’

‘No, but I say,’ said Rupert hurriedly, ‘look here! You know I don’t believe in magic. I’d like to, really I would. But I found something. You’ve got the key of the drawing-room. I believe I know where those seeds are.’

The drawing-room was almost dark when they got there. Just one last ray of dusky gold lay across the room; it struck the round mirror and was reflected with dazzling brightness on some golden object at the end of the room. ‘The harp!’ whispered Rupert. ‘How queer, because it was exactly there – ’

It was still exactly there. And every one was quite sure that this little round box held the seeds of which the book told.

‘See,’ said Charlotte, holding them in the ray of yellow light; ‘they’re shaped like hearts, and they’re pink like wishes. I know wishes are pink. They must be some colour, and why not that?’

‘But ought we to take them?’ was the blighting question of Caroline.

It was settled by a note which Harriet obligingly carried to the Uncle.

Dearest Uncle – There are some pinky seeds in the drawing-room. May we have seven to sow?

And the answer was:

Certainly. Seventy if you like. – Your

    D.S.T.U.

So, very early next morning they got up. Bathing seven times is no joke, especially when you dry thoroughly between, and this Caroline conscientiously insisted on. ‘We must be quite sure we get it quite right,’ she said.

The four children met, by appointment, at the top of the stairs and crept down in silence. They went out by the French window which had once admitted Rupert. When they were outside, he said, ‘I bathed seven times too, because Charles did nothing but bother. But it’s no good my sowing the things, even if it’s all true. Because I haven’t faith in my heart, or my head either. I think really it’s the head’s fault.’

‘Oh, never mind your head,’ said Charlotte; ‘we’ll all sow one each, and the three over we’ll put in all together – all of us.’

The grass was still dewy-wet, but the gardener was at work in the Wonderful Garden. The children went through the ancient formula of ‘ena dena dina dus,’ to decide who should approach him, and the lot fell on Charlotte.

‘Please,’ she said, ‘may we have a bit of garden for our own?’

‘Ay,’ said the gardener, pointing to a vacant plot near the arbour.

‘Oh, thank you,’ said Charlotte, ‘but mayn’t we have a bit in the garden of peace?’

‘Who learned you to call it that?’ the gardener asked, looking at her strangely.

‘It’s the right name, isn’t it?’ Charlotte asked with sudden anxiety.

‘It’s the right name right enough,’ he admitted.

‘We want a bit that won’t be disturbed for seven weeks,’ Charlotte explained, and he looked at her more strangely than ever.

‘Sure you’ve got the right seed to sow?’

Charlotte opened her hand and he stooped and looked at it. Then he stood up and saluted like a soldier.

‘Why – ’ said Charlotte, ‘you – what do you mean?’

‘Nothing!’ he said, straightening his back; ‘only I worked here all my days, and my father afore me, and his father afore him, and so on back. You can see our names on the stones in the churchyard, same as you see Master’s people’s names on the tombs inside of the church. I’ll find a corner for you, my dear, and no one shan’t disturb the seed, once you’ve set it. You know how it’s done? No chatter, and which way to look?’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Charlotte, ‘but how do you know?’

‘Old man’s tales,’ he said; ‘old man’s tales,’ and led the way to the terrace.

‘Would you like to sow one of them?’ said Charlotte eagerly. ‘I know the others won’t mind if you would. Would you?’

‘Not me, my dear,’ said the old man, and he sighed. ‘Years agone, I don’t say. But not now. I’m old, you see. I ain’t got no heart’s desires nowadays except what I’ll get in the way of nature and in the Lord’s good time. You go along and set your seeds. I’m glad I seen ’em though. Over yonder, between the lupins and the larkspurs. That’ll be your plot, and I’ll mark the place.’

Charlotte, very much impressed, beckoned the others. In silence they sowed the seed. The gardener watched them, and when they had planted the seeds and covered them over, he took a pencil and a painted slip-label from his pocket, wrote on it and stuck it in the ground. The children stooped to read what he had written.

‘F. of H.D.’ it said.

‘Well!’ said Caroline.

‘Least said, soonest mended,’ said the gardener. ‘I shouldn’t wonder if seed leaves was to break ground in seven days. It was allus a wonderful garden, this was,’ he said, and turned to his work.

‘Well!’ said Charlotte again, and they went back through the dewy park.

After breakfast the Language of Flowers was earnestly consulted.

‘It’s no use going on thinking and talking about the F. of H.D.,’ said Caroline, when they had talked of nothing else for an hour and a half. ‘What we’ve got to do now, is to find the right flowers for the presentation.’

An hour’s earnest study of Miss Peckitt’s invaluable present yielded an interesting list. ‘Learning’ had apparently no floral emblem, so blue salvia, which means ‘Wisdom,’ was chosen to represent it. It was felt that on an occasion of this sort it was impossible to have too much of a good thing, so twelve flowers were chosen, and all but one, an outsider called circæa, which means a spell, of which the gardener had never heard, were found in the Wonderful Garden.

Rupert prevailed on Mrs. Wilmington to open the drawing-room on the ground that the clergyman was coming to tea, and she even agreed to allow the floral tributes to be arranged on a large table in that hallowed sanctuary, only insisting that a linen drugget should be laid down before so much as a blade of grass was carried in.