the second day of guinevere’s dawning found canterton in the rosery, under the white tent umbrella. it was just such a day as yesterday, with perhaps a few more white galleons sailing the sky and making the blue seem even bluer.
guinevere’s first bud was opening to the sun, the coral pink outer petals with their edging of saffron unfolding to show a heart of fire.
about eleven o’clock lavender, the foreman, appeared in the rosery, an alert, wiry figure in sun hat, rich brown trousers, and a blue check shirt. lavender was swarthy and reticent, with a pronounced chin, and a hooked nose that was like the inquiring beak of a bird. he had extraordinarily deep-set eyes, and these eyes of his were the man. he rarely missed seeing anything, from the first tinge of rust on a rose, to the beginnings of american blight on a fruit tree. as for his work, lavender was something of a fanatic and a frenchman. go-as-you-please dullards did not like him. he was too ubiquitous, too shrewd, too enthusiastic, too quick in picking out a piece of scamped work, too sarcastic when he found a thing done badly. lavender could label everything, and his technical knowledge was superb. canterton paid him five hundred a year, knowing that the man was worth it.
lavender came with a message, but he forgot it the moment he looked at the rose. his swarthy face lost all its reticence, and his eyes seemed to take fire under their overhanging eyebrows. he had a way of standing with his body bent slightly forward, his hands spread on the seat of his trousers, and when he was particularly interested or puzzled he rubbed his hands up and down with varying degrees of energy.
“she’s out, sir!”
“what do you think of her, lavender?”
the foreman bent over the rose, and seemed to inhale something that he found intoxicatingly pleasant.
“you’ve got it, sir. she’s up above anything that has been brought out yet. look at the way she’s opening! you can almost see the fire pouring out. it’s alive—the colour’s alive.”
canterton smiled.
“just like a little furnace all aglow.”
“that flower ought to make the real people rave! it’s almost too good for the blessed public. any pinky thing does for the public.”
“i am going to send the second flower to mr. woolridge.”
“he’ll go down on his knees and pray to it.”
“so much the better for us. if anyone’s praise is worth hearing his is.”
“he’s a wonder, sir, for a clergyman!”
lavender rubbed his trousers, and then suddenly remembered what he had come for.
“there’s a lady, sir, in the office. wants to know whether she may come into the nursery and do some painting.”
“who is she?”
“miss carfax from orchards corner. i said i’d come and see you about it.”
“miss carfax? i don’t remember.”
“they’ve been there about a year. the mother’s an invalid. quiet sort of woman.”
“oh, well, i’ll see her, lavender.”
“shall i bring her here?”
“yes. i don’t want to leave the rose till i have seen the whole cycle. and mrs. canterton said she was sending one of the maids down to cut some roses.”
lavender went off, and returned in about five minutes with a girl in a straw hat and a plain white linen dress. he stood in one of the openings through the yew hedge and pointed out canterton to her with a practical forefinger.
“that’s mr. canterton over there.”
she thanked him and walked on.
canterton was bending forward over the rose, and remained unaware of her presence till he heard footsteps close to him on the paved path.
“mr. canterton?”
“yes.”
he stood up, and lifted his hat. she was shy of him, and shy of asking for what she had come to ask. her blue eyes, with their large pupils looked almost black—sensitive eyes that clouded quickly.
“i am afraid i am disturbing you.”
he liked her from the first moment, because of her voice, a voice that spoke softly in a minor key, and did not seem in a hurry.
“no, not a bit.”
“i’m miss carfax, and i paint a little. i wondered whether you would let me come and make some studies in your gardens.”
“won’t you sit down?”
he turned the chair towards her, but she remained standing, her shyness lifting a little under the spell of his tranquil bigness. she became aware suddenly of the rosery. her eyes swept it, glimmered, and something seemed to rise in her throat.
“nothing but roses!”
canterton found himself studying her profile, with its straight, low forehead, short nose, and sensitive mouth and chin. her hair was a dense, lustrous black, waved back from the forehead, without hiding the shapeliness of her head. she wore a blouse that was cut low at the throat, so that the whole neck showed, slim but perfect, curving forward very slightly, so that her head was poised like the head of one who was listening. there was something flower-like in her figure, with its lithe fragility clothed in the simple white spathe of her dress.
canterton saw her nostrils quivering. her throat and bosom seemed to dilate.
“how perfect it is!”
“almost at its best just now.”
“they make one feel very humble, these flowers. a paint brush seems so superfluous.”
for the moment her consciousness had become merged and lost in the colours around her. she spoke to canterton as though he were some impersonal spirit, the genius of the place, a mind and not a man.
“there must be hundreds of roses here.”
“yes, some hundreds.”
“and the dark wall of that yew hedge shows up the colours.”
canterton felt a curious piquing of his curiosity. the girl was a new creation to him, and she was strangely familiar, a plant brought from a new country—like and yet unlike something that he already knew.
he showed her guinevere.
“how do you like this rose—here?”
her consciousness returned from its voyage of wonder, and became aware of him as a man.
“which one?”
“here. it is the latest thing i have raised.”
it was an imaginative whim on his part, but as she bent over the rose he fancied that the flower glowed with a more miraculous fire, and that its radiance spread to the girl’s face.
“this is wonderful. the shading is so perfect. you know, it is a most extraordinary mixing and blending of colours.”
“that was just the problem. whether the flower would turn out a mere garish, gaudy thing.”
“but it is exquisite.”
“i have been sitting here for two whole days watching the bud open.”
she turned to him with an impulsive flash of the eye.
“have you? i like the idea of that. just watching the dawn.”
her shyness had gone, and canterton felt that an extraordinary thing had happened. she no longer seemed a stranger among his roses, although she had not been more than ten minutes in the rosery.
“nature opens her secret doors only to those who are patient.”
“and what a fascinating life! like becoming very tiny, just a fairy, and letting oneself down into the heart of a rose.”
he had it, the thing that had puzzled him. she was just such a child as lynette, save that she was the woman. there was the same wonder, the same delightful half-earnest playfulness, the same seeing look in the eyes, the same sensitive quiver about the mouth.
she was gazing at guinevere.
“oh, that piques me, challenges me!”
“what, the flower?”
“it makes me think of the conquest of colours that i want to try.”
he understood.
“come and paint it.”
“may i?”
“certainly.”
“if i might come and try.”
“you had better come soon.”
“this afternoon?”
“why not?”
“it is very good of you, mr. canterton.”
“not a bit.”
“then i’ll come.”
she kept to her word, and reappeared about two o’clock with her paint box, a camp stool, and a drawing-block. canterton had lunched in the rosery. he surrendered his place under the white umbrella, made her sit in the shade, and went to fetch a jug of water for her brushes. he rejoined her, bringing another garden chair with him, and so it happened that they spent the afternoon together.
canterton smoked and read, while eve carfax was busy with her brushes. she seemed absorbed in her work, and canterton, looking up from his book from time to time, watched her without being noticed. the intent poise of her head reminded him vaguely of some picture he had seen. her mouth had a meditative tenderness, and her eyes were full of a quiet delight.
presently she sat back in her chair, and held the sketch at arm’s length. her eyes became more critical, questioning, and there was a quiver of indecision about her mouth.
“have you finished it?”
she glanced at him as though startled.
“in a way. but i can’t quite make up my mind.”
“may i see?”
she passed him the block and watched his face as he examined the work. once or twice he glanced at guinevere. then he stood up, and putting the painting on the chair, looked at it from a little distance.
“excellent.”
she flushed.
“do you think so?”
“i have never seen a better flower picture.”
“it is such a subtle study in colours that i could not be sure.”
“you must be very self-critical.”
“oh, i am!”
he turned and looked at her with a new expression, the respect of the expert for an expert’s abilities.
“you have made a study of flowers?”
“yes.”
“of course you must have done. i ought to know that.”
her colour grew richer.
“mr. canterton, i don’t think i have ever had such praise. i mean, praise that i valued. i love flowers so much, and you know them so intimately.”
“that we understand them together.”
he almost added, “and each other.”
