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The Shuttle Chapter 21 - Kedgers · The Frances Hodgson Burnett Library

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  Speaker 1: CHAPTER XXI. KEDGES The work at Stornham Court went on steadily,
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  Speaker 1: though with no greater rapidity than is usually achieved by
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  Speaker 1: rural labourers. There was, however, without doubt, a certain stimulus
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  Speaker 1: in the occasional appearance of Miss Vanderpool, who almost daily
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  Speaker 1: sauntered around the place to look on and exchange a
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  Speaker 1: few words with the workmen. When they saw her coming,
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  Speaker 1: the men, hastily standing up to touch their foreheads, were
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  Speaker 1: conscious of a slight acceleration of being, which was not
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  Speaker 1: quite the ordinary quickening produced by the presence of employers.
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  Speaker 1: It was, in fact, a sensation rather pleasing than anxious.
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  Speaker 1: Her interest in the work was, upon the whole, one
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  Speaker 1: which they found themselves beginning to share. The unusualness of
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  Speaker 1: the situation— a young woman, who evidently stood for many things
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  Speaker 1: and powers desirable—' Employing labourers and seeming to know what
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  Speaker 1: she intended them to do' was a thing not easy
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  Speaker 1: to get over or become accustomed to.' But there she was,
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  Speaker 1: as easy and well-mannered as you please,' and with gentlefolk's ways.'
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  Speaker 1: There was an American such finish could scarcely be expected
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  Speaker 1: from her.' She knew each man's name, it was revealed gradually,'
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  Speaker 1: and what was more knew what he stood for in
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  Speaker 1: the village,' which cottage he lived in, how many children
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  Speaker 1: he had,' and something about his wife.' She remembered things
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  Speaker 1: and made inquiries which showed knowledge. Besides this she represented,
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  Speaker 1: though perhaps they were scarcely yet fully awake to the fact,
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  Speaker 1: the promise their discouraged dullness had long lost sight of.
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  Speaker 1: It actually became apparent that her ladyship, who walked with her,
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  Speaker 1: was altering day by day. Was it true that the
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  Speaker 1: bit of colour they had heard spoken of when she
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  Speaker 1: returned from town was deepening and fixing itself on her cheek?
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  Speaker 1: It sometimes looked like it. Was she a bit less
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  Speaker 1: stiff and shy-like and frightened in her way? Buttle mentioned
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  Speaker 1: to his friends at the clock that he was sure
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  Speaker 1: of it. She had begun to look a man in
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  Speaker 1: the face when she talked, and more than once he
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  Speaker 1: had heard her laugh at things her sister said. To
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  Speaker 1: one man more than to any other had come an
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  Speaker 1: almost unspeakable piece of luck through the new arrival, a
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  Speaker 1: thing which to himself, at least, was as the opening
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  Speaker 1: of the heavens. This man was the discouraged Kedges. Miss Vanderpool,
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  Speaker 1: coming with her ladyship to talk to him, found that
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  Speaker 1: the man was a person of more experience than might
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  Speaker 1: have been imagined. In his youth he had been an
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  Speaker 1: under-gardener at a great place, and being fond of his
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  Speaker 1: work had learned more than under-gardeners often learn. He had
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  Speaker 1: been one of a small army of workers under the
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  Speaker 1: orders of an imposing head-gardener whose knowledge was a science.
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  Speaker 1: He had seen and taken part in what was done
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  Speaker 1: in orchid houses, orangeries, vineries, peach-houses, conservatories full of wondrous
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  Speaker 1: tropical plants— but it was not easy for a man
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  Speaker 1: like himself, uneducated and lacking confidence of character, to advance
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  Speaker 1: as a bolder young man might have done. The all-ruling
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  Speaker 1: head gardener had inspired him with awe. He had watched
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  Speaker 1: him reverently, accumulating knowledge, but being given as an underling
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  Speaker 1: no opportunity to do more than obey orders. He had
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  Speaker 1: spent his life in obeying, and congratulated himself that obedience
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  Speaker 1: secured him his weekly wage. He was a great man, Mr. Timpson,
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  Speaker 1: he was, he said in talking to Miss Vanderpool. Aye,
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  Speaker 1: he was that. Knew everything that could happen to a
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  Speaker 1: flower or a shrub or a vegetable. Knew it all.
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  Speaker 1: Had a library of books and read them night and day.
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  Speaker 1: Ed Gardner's cottage was good enough for gentry. The old
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  Speaker 1: Marcus used to walk around the otters and gardens talking
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  Speaker 1: to him by the hour. If you did what he
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  Speaker 1: told you exactly like he told it to you, then
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  Speaker 1: you were all right. But if you didn't,' Well, you
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  Speaker 1: was off the place before you'd time to look around.'
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  Speaker 1: Worked under him from twenty to forty.' Then he died,
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  Speaker 1: and the new one that came in had new ways.'
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  Speaker 1: He made a clean sweeper, most of us.' The men
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  Speaker 1: said he was jealous of Mr. Timpson.'' That was bad
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  Speaker 1: for you if you had a wife and children,' Miss
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  Speaker 1: Vanderpool said.' Eight of us to feed,' Kitch's answered.' A
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  Speaker 1: man with that on him can't wait, Miss.' I had
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  Speaker 1: to take the first place I could get.' It wasn't
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  Speaker 1: a good one.' Four parsonage with a big family' and
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  Speaker 1: not room on the place for the vegetables they wanted.'
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  Speaker 1: Cabbages and potatoes and beans and broccoli.' No time nor
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  Speaker 1: grant for flowers.' Used to seem as if flowers got
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  Speaker 1: to be a kind of dream.'' Kedgers gave vent to
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  Speaker 1: a deprecatory half-laugh.' Me, I was fond of flowers.' I
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  Speaker 1: wouldn't have asked no better than to live among them.' Mr.
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  Speaker 1: Timpson gave me a book or two' when his lordship
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  Speaker 1: sent him a lot of new ones.' I've bought a
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  Speaker 1: few myself, though I suppose I couldn't afford it. From
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  Speaker 1: the poor parsonage he'd gone to a market gardener, and
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  Speaker 1: had evidently liked the work better, hard and unceasing as
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  Speaker 1: it had been, because he'd been among flowers again. Sudden
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  Speaker 1: changes from forcing houses to chill outside dampness had resulted
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  Speaker 1: in rheumatism. After that things had gone badly. He began
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  Speaker 1: to be regarded as past his prime of strength. Lower
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  Speaker 1: wages and labour still as hard as ever, though it
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  Speaker 1: professed to be lighter and therefore cheaper. At last the
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  Speaker 1: big neglected gardens of Stornham. What I'm seeing, miss, all
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  Speaker 1: the time is what could be done with them. Wonderful
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  Speaker 1: it'd be. They might be the show of the county
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  Speaker 1: if we had Mr. Timpson here. Miss Vanderpool, standing in
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  Speaker 1: the sunshine on the broad weed-grown pathway, was conscious that
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  Speaker 1: he was remotely moving. His flowers, his flowers. They had
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  Speaker 1: been the centre of his rudimentary rural being. Each man
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  Speaker 1: or woman cared for some one thing— and the unfed
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  Speaker 1: longing for it left the life of the creature a
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  Speaker 1: thwarted passion. Kedgers, yearning to stir the earth about the
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  Speaker 1: roots of blooming things, and doomed to broccoli and cabbage,
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  Speaker 1: had spent his years unfed. No thing is a small thing. Kedgers,
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  Speaker 1: with the earth under his broad fingernails and his half-apologetic laugh,
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  Speaker 1: being the centre of his own world, was as large
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  Speaker 1: as Mount Dunstan, who stood thwarted in the centre of his. Chancing,
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  Speaker 1: for God knows what mystery of reason— To be born
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  Speaker 1: one of those having power, one might perhaps set in
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  Speaker 1: order a world like Kedger's. In the course of twenty
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  Speaker 1: years' work under Timpson, she said, you must have learned
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  Speaker 1: a great deal from him. A good bit, miss, a
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  Speaker 1: good bit, admitted Kedger's. If I hadn't ha' cared for
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  Speaker 1: the work, I might ha' gone on doing it with
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  Speaker 1: me eyes shut. But I didn't. Mr. Timpson's art was
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  Speaker 1: set on it as well as his head, and mine
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  Speaker 1: got to be. But I wasn't even second or third
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  Speaker 1: under him. I was only one of a lot. he
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  Speaker 1: would have thought me fine and impudent if i'd told
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  Speaker 1: him i'd got to know a good deal of what
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  Speaker 1: he knew and had some bits of ideas of me
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  Speaker 1: own if you had men enough under you and could
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  Speaker 1: arter all you want miss vanderpoel said tentatively you know
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  Speaker 1: what the place should be no doubt that i do
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  Speaker 1: miss answered ketchers turning red with feeling why if the
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  Speaker 1: soil was well treated anything ud grow here the situation's
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  Speaker 1: for everything The shade for things that won't sit and
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  Speaker 1: south aspects for things that won't grow without the warmth
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  Speaker 1: of them. Well, I've gone about many a day when
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  Speaker 1: I was low down in my mind and worked myself
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  Speaker 1: up to being cheerful by just planning where I could
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  Speaker 1: put things and what they'd look like. Liliums, now. I
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  Speaker 1: could grow them in masses from June to October. He
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  Speaker 1: was becoming excited, like a warhorse sent in battle from afar,
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  Speaker 1: and forgot himself. The lilium jargantum. I don't know whether
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  Speaker 1: you've ever seen one, miss, but if you did it'd
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  Speaker 1: almost take your breath away. A lilium that grows twelve
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  Speaker 1: feet high and more, and has a flower like a
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  Speaker 1: great snow-white trumpet, and the scent pouring out of it
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  Speaker 1: so that it floats for yards. There's a place where
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  Speaker 1: I could grow them so that you'd come on them sudden,
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  Speaker 1: and you'd think they couldn't be true.'' Grow them, catchers,
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  Speaker 1: begin to grow them,' said Miss Vanderpool.' I' ve never seen them.
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  Speaker 1: I must see them.' Kedge's low, deprecatory chuckle made itself
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  Speaker 1: heard again.' Perhaps I'm going too fast,' he said.' It' d
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  Speaker 1: take a good bit of expense to do it, miss,
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  Speaker 1: a good bit.' Then Miss Vanderpool made, and she made
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  Speaker 1: it in the simplest, matter-of-fact manner too, the startling remark which,
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  Speaker 1: three hours later, all Stornham village had heard of. The
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  Speaker 1: most astounding part of the remark was that it was
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  Speaker 1: uttered as if there was nothing in it which was
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  Speaker 1: not the absolutely natural outcome of the circumstances of the case.
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  Speaker 1: expense which is proper and necessary need not be considered
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  Speaker 1: she said regular accounts will be kept and supervised but
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  Speaker 1: you can have all that is required then it appeared
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  Speaker 1: that kedgers almost became pale being a foreigner perhaps she
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  Speaker 1: did not know how much she was implying when she
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  Speaker 1: said such a thing to a man who had never
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  Speaker 1: held a place like Timpson's. Miss, he hesitated, even shamefacedly,
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  Speaker 1: because to suggest to such a fine-mannered, calm young lady
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  Speaker 1: that she might be ignorant seemed perilously near impertinence. Miss,
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  Speaker 1: did you mean you wanted only the Lilium Gigantium, or
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  Speaker 1: all other things as well? I should like to see,
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  Speaker 1: she answered him, all that you see. I should like
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  Speaker 1: to hear more of it all when we have time
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  Speaker 1: to talk it over. I understand we should need time
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  Speaker 1: to discuss plans.' The quiet way she went on, seeming
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  Speaker 1: to believe in him almost as if he was Mr. Timpson.
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  Speaker 1: The old feeling, born and fostered by the great head
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  Speaker 1: gardener's rule, reasserted itself.' It means more to work on
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  Speaker 1: someone over than Miss,' he said,' if you had a
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  Speaker 1: man like Mr. Timpson.'' You have not forgotten what you've learned.
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  Speaker 1: With men enough under you it can be put into practice.'
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  Speaker 1: You mean you trust me, miss, same as if I
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  Speaker 1: was Mr. Timpson? Yes, if you ever feel the need
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  Speaker 1: of a man like Timpson, no doubt we can find one.
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  Speaker 1: But you will not. You love the work too much. Then,
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  Speaker 1: still standing in the sunshine on the weed-grown path, she
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  Speaker 1: continued to talk to him. It revealed itself that she
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  Speaker 1: understood a good deal. As he was to assume heavier responsibilities,
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  Speaker 1: he was to receive higher wages. It was his experience
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  Speaker 1: which was to be considered, not his years. This was
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  Speaker 1: a new point of view, the mere propeller of wheelbarrows
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  Speaker 1: and digger of the soil, particularly after having been attacked
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  Speaker 1: by rheumatism, depreciates in value after youth is past. Kedgers
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  Speaker 1: knew that a Mr. Timpson, with a regiment of under-gardeners
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  Speaker 1: and daily increasing knowledge of his profession, could continue to
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  Speaker 1: direct though years rolled by. But to such fortune he
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  Speaker 1: had not dared to aspire. One of the lodgers might
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  Speaker 1: be put in order for him to live in. He
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  Speaker 1: might have the hothouses to put in order, too. He
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  Speaker 1: might have implements, plants, shrubs, even some of the newer
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  Speaker 1: books to consult. Kedge's brain reeled.' You think I'm to
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  Speaker 1: be trusted, miss?' he said more than once.' You think
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  Speaker 1: it would be all right?' I wasn't even second or
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  Speaker 1: third under Mr. Timpson.' But if I say it, I shouldn't.'
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  Speaker 1: I never lost a chance of learning things.' I was
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  Speaker 1: just mad about it.' Taint only liliums.' Lord, I know
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  Speaker 1: them all as if they were my own children born
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  Speaker 1: and bred.' Shrubs, coniferers, herbaceous borders that bloom in succession.'
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  Speaker 1: My word, what you can do with just delphiniums and
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  Speaker 1: campanula and aquilegia and poppies. Everyday things like them that'll
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  Speaker 1: grow in any cottage garden. And bulbs and annuals. Roses, miss. Why, Mr.
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  Speaker 1: Timpson had them in thickets and carpets and clambering over
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  Speaker 1: trees and tumbling over walls in sheets and torrents. Just
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  Speaker 1: know their ways and what they want and they'll grow
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  Speaker 1: in a riot. But they want feeding, feeding. A rose
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  Speaker 1: is a gross feeder. feed a glory Dijon and watch
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  Speaker 1: over him, and he'll cover our house-top and give you
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  Speaker 1: two bloomings. I have never lived in an English garden.
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  Speaker 1: I should like to see this one at its best.
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  Speaker 1: Leaving her with salutes of abject gratitude, Kedgers moved away bewildered.
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  Speaker 1: What man could believe it true? At three or four
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  Speaker 1: yards' distance he stopped and, turning, came back to touch
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  Speaker 1: his cap again. you understand miss he said i wasn't
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  Speaker 1: even second or third under mr timson i'm not deceiving
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  Speaker 1: you am i miss you are to be trusted said
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  Speaker 1: miss vanderpoel first because you love the things and next
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  Speaker 1: because of timson chapter twenty one