The Wonderful Garden or The Three Cs

‘But it’s something, isn’t it,’ said the Uncle, ‘to have seen her, even if only for once?’

You will understand that anything Mrs. Wilmington might say was powerless to break the charm of so wonderful an adventure. Hollow tales she told of the portrait’s having been borrowed for a show of pictures of celebrities who had lived in the neighbourhood, and of the picture being brought back very late the night before, after the servants had gone to bed; also of a gentleman who told her that Mr. Alphabet sent his love; also of a lady, a great actress from London, who had taken part in the Pageant which was one of the features of Lord Andore’s coming-of-age party – ‘a very nice lady she was, too, dressed up to look the part of the picture, and put down as Dame Eleanour in the programme, which I can show you printed in silver on satin paper.’

‘I daresay it’s true what the Wilmington says,’ said Caroline when they were alone, ‘but it doesn’t make any difference. Our Lady wasn’t dressed up to look the part. She was the picture. Perhaps our heart’s desire will turn out to be seeing her again. Let’s go and see if the seed has flowered.’

It had. In that plot of the terraced garden which the old gardener had marked with the pencilled slip-label, seven tall straight stems had shot up, perfect and even in each leaf and stalk, as every plant was which grew in that wonderful soil. And each stem bore one only flower, white and star-shaped, and with a strange sweet scent.

‘I wish Rupert were here,’ said Charlotte. ‘We ought to wait for Rupert.’

And as she spoke, there was Rupert, coming to them through the flowers of the lower garden.

‘So they’ve flowered,’ he said, without any other greeting.

‘Yes, and now we’re going to eat them and get our heart’s desire. Oh, Rupert, I do wish you believed in it all.’

‘Perhaps I do,’ said Rupert. ‘The decent way old Macpherson has behaved while I’ve been there makes you ready to believe in anything.’

‘Then let’s eat them,’ said Caroline; ‘one each, and the other three we’ll divide as well as we can.’

Each plucked a white starry blossom. The stalks snapped off clean and fresh like primrose stalks. Then the four put each a hand on the stalk of the fifth flower and broke it between them. And so with the sixth and the seventh. Caroline divided the three flowers with extreme care and accuracy and handed its share to each child. Then, standing in a ring in the sunny garden, the four ate the white flowers. The taste of them was pleasant but strange, something like pineapple and something like flower-artichokes (which have the most mysterious taste in the world) – something like spice and something like the fruit you eat in dreams.

And as they finished eating they heard a foot on the steps of the terrace and turned, and it was the Uncle, coming towards them with pale-coloured papers in one hand and a bunch of waxy white flowers in the other.

Fond as all were of Uncle Charles, no one could feel that the moment was fortunately chosen, and I am sorry to say that Charles voiced to some extent the general feeling when he said almost audibly, ‘Oh, bother!’

The Uncle came towards them smiling kindly.

‘I have come,’ he said, ‘to make a presentation to you.’ He gave to each a white flower. ‘I have again consulted that entrancing volume of yours, The Language of Flowers, and it tells me that this is the appropriate flower to convey the sentiments with which I approach you.’

Every one said, ‘Thank you very much.’ And Caroline added, ‘But what does it mean, Uncle?’

‘What? Has your book taught you so little?’ he asked.

‘You see,’ Caroline kindly explained, ‘I don’t even know what the name of the flower is, but it’s most awfully kind of you, uncle, all the same.’

‘Oh, the name of the flower?’ said the Uncle. ‘It’s stephanotis.’

‘But that means, “Will you accompany me to the East?”’ said Caroline.

‘Well,’ said the Uncle, ‘and will you?’

‘To the East?’

‘Yes,’ said the Uncle; ‘let us sit down on the steps and talk over the idea.’

They sat down and the Uncle explained.

‘Your finding those books,’ he said, ‘has so completely revolutionised my ideas of magic that I cannot complete my book. I must throw it into the melting-pot, rewrite it entirely. And to do that I need more knowledge than I have. And I intend to travel, to examine the magic of other lands. The first country I shall visit is India, and it occurred to me that you might like to go with me and visit your parents. I have been corresponding with them by cable,’ he added, waving the pale-coloured papers, ‘and your parents are delighted with the idea of the family reunion (pink verbena). We start, if the idea smiles to you, next week.’

‘Oh, uncle!’ was all that any one could find to say, till Charlotte added, ‘But what about Rupert?’

‘Rupert is to go too,’ said the Uncle, ‘as far as Suez, where his father will meet him.’

‘Is father coming home, then?’ Rupert asked breathlessly.

‘For a year’s leave,’ said the Uncle. ‘But you haven’t any of you answered the stephanotis question yet. Will you accompany me to the East?’

Caroline ran to a flower-bed and came back with some leaves and flowers which she thrust into the Uncle’s hand.

‘Small white bell-flower, wood sorrel, aquilegia,’ she said; ‘they mean perfect joy; we love you beyond measure; and Yes. Yes! Yes!

As they turned to go to the house they saw the seven stems on which the white starry flowers had grown, and suddenly and surely each child saw that the Uncle, when he brought them the bunch of pale papers in one hand and the bunch of stephanotis in the other, was really bringing to each child its Heart’s Desire.

THE END