james canterton was camping out in the rosery under the shade of a white tent umbrella.
it was a june day, and beyond the fir woods that broke the bluster of the south-west winds, a few white clouds floated in a deep blue sky. as for the rosery at fernhill, no persian poet could have found a more delectable spot in which to dream through the hours of a scented day, with a jar of purple wine beside him. an old yew hedge, clipped square, closed it in like a wall, with an opening cut at each corner where paths paved with rough stones disappeared into the world without. these four broad, grey paths, the crevices between the stones planted with purple aubretia and star-flowered rock plants, met in the centre of the rosery, where a sundial stood on a gothic pillar. next the yew hedge were rambling roses trained upon the trunks of dead fir trees. numberless little grey paths branched off from the main ones, dividing up the great square court into some two score rose beds. and this june day this secret, yew-walled garden flamed with a thousand tongues of fire. crimson, old rose, coral pink, blush white, damask, saffron, blood red, snow, cerise, salmon, white, orange, copper, gold, all the colours seemed alive with light, the rich green of the young foliage giving a setting of softness to the splendour of the flowers.
james canterton was the big, placid, meditative creature needed for such a rose garden. he had a table beside him, and on it a litter of things—notebooks, a tobacco tin, an empty wine glass, a book on the flora of china, two briarwood pipes, and a lens set in a silver frame. he was sitting with his feet within a foot of a rose bush planted in a corner of one of the many beds, a mere slip of a tree that was about to unfold its first flower.
this rose, canterton’s latest creation, had four buds on it, three tightly closed, the fourth on the eve of opening. he had christened the new rose “guinevere,” and there was a subtle and virginal thrill about guinevere’s first flowering, the outer petals, shaded from coral to amber, beginning to disclose a faint inwardness of fiery gold. canterton had sat there since eight in the morning, for he wanted to watch the whole unfolding of the flower, and his vigil might continue through most of the morrow. he would be down in the rosery when the dew glistened on the petals, nor would he leave it till the yellow rays of the horizontal sun poured over the yew hedge, and made every flower glow with a miraculous brilliance.
canterton’s catalogues were to be found in most well-to-do country houses, and his art had disclosed itself in many opulent gardens. a rich amateur in the beginning, he had chosen to assume the broader professional career, perhaps because his big, quiet, and creative brain loved the sending forth of rich merchandise, and the creation of beauty. as a searcher after new plants he had travelled half over the globe—explored china, the himalayas, california, and south africa. he was famous for his hybridisation of orchids, an authority on all trees and flowering shrubs, an expert whose opinions were valued at kew. it was beauty that fired him, colour and perfumes, and at fernhill, in this surrey landscape, he had created a great nursery where beautiful things were born. as a trader, trading the gorgeous tints of azaleas and rhododendrons, or the glaucous stateliness of young cedars, he had succeeded as remarkably as he had succeeded as an artist. south, east, and west his work might be studied in many a garden; architects who conceived for the wealthy advised their patrons to persuade canterton to create a setting.
his success was the more astonishing, seeing that those who set out to persuade their fellow men not only to see beauty, but to buy it, have to deal with a legion of gross fools. nor would anyone have expected the world to have paid anything to a man who could sit through a whole day watching the opening bud of a new rose. canterton was one of the family of the big, patient people, the men of the microscope and the laboratory, who discover great things quietly, and remain undiscovered by the apes who sit and gibber at a clown on a stage.
canterton had picked up one of his pipes, when a maidservant appeared in one of the arches cut in the yew hedge. she sighted the man under the white umbrella and made her way towards him along one of the stone paths.
“the mistress sent me to find you, sir.”
“well, mary?”
“she wants to speak to you, sir.”
“i am busy for the moment.”
the maid hid an amused sympathy behind a sedate manner.
“i’ll tell mrs. canterton you are engaged, sir.”
and she showed the practical good sense of her sympathy by leaving him alone.
canterton stretched out his legs, and stared at guinevere over the bowl of his empty pipe. his massive head, with its steady, deep-set, meditative eyes, looked the colour of bronze under the shade of the umbrella. it was a “peasant’s” head, calm, sun-tanned, kind, with a simple profundity in its expression, and a quiet imaginativeness about the mouth. his brown hair, grizzled at the temples, had a slight curl to it; his teeth were perfect; his hands big, brown, yet finely formed. he was the very antithesis of the city worker, having much of the large purposefulness of nature in him, never moving jerkily, or chattering, or letting his eyes snap restlessly at motes in the sunlight. a john ridd of a man, yet much less of a simpleton, he had a dry, kind sparkle of humour in him that delighted children and made loud talkers feel uneasy. sentimental people said that his eyes were sad, though they would have been nearer the truth if they had said that he was lonely.
canterton filled his pipe, keeping a humorously expectant eye fixed on one particular opening in the yew hedge. there are people and things whose arrival may be counted on as inevitable, and canterton was in the act of striking a match when he saw his wife enter the rosery. she came through the yew hedge with that characteristic scurry of hers suggesting the indefatigable woman of affairs in a hurry, her chin poking forward, the curve of her neck exaggerating the intrusive stoop of her shoulders.
gertrude canterton was dressed for some big function, and she had chosen primrose, the very colour that she should not have worn. her large black hat with its sable feather sat just at the wrong angle; wisps of hair straggled at the back of her neck, and one of her gloves was split between the fingers. her dress hinted at a certain fussy earnestness, an impatience of patience before mirrors, or perhaps an unconscious contempt for such reflectors of trifles. she was tall, narrow across the shoulders, and distinguished by a pallid strenuousness that was absolutely lacking in any spirit of repose. her face was too big, and colourless, and the nose too broad and inquisitive about the nostrils. it was a face that seemed to grow larger and larger when she had talked anyone into a corner, looming up, white, and earnest and egotistical through a fog of words, the chin poking forward, the pale eyes set in a stare. she had a queer habit of wriggling her shoulders when she entered a room full of people, a trick that seemed strange in a woman of so much self-conceit.
