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Chapter XII.

‘And thou, while summer skies are clear,
Within my greenwood bower,
Shalt scorn the pleasures once so dear
That dwell in town or tower.’

The Forester.

At last Mr. Wishart had begun to build his house. For more than a month he had vacillated between three plans which had been submitted to him by his architect, Mr. Mooney. They were in the Italian villa style, so that gentleman averred, and they were extremely unlike any Italian villa that has been built since Cicero rejoiced in that one at Tusculum, so fondly remembered by Mrs. Blimber.

Possibly Mr. Wishart never would have decided which was the best of these products of Mr. Mooney's fertile imagination had not his step-sister implored him, in a letter which graphically described the weariness of an unsettled life, to hasten on the work and to provide some sort of a home for her, were it only a nut-shell of four rooms. He determined to make up his mind, and his eye fell approvingly on a design that had kept Mr. Mooney awake for two nights. Mooney, it must be explained, was young and ambitious, and had not been in business long page 164 enough to lose his enthusiasm by slow evaporation, as happens with so many professionals. His mind was constantly being illumined by new ideas, and this particular Italian villa, grand and stately, with colonnade, terrace, and tower, was one of the greatest which had been vouchsafed to him for many days.

‘Too large,’ thought Mr. Wishart. ‘It is a palace. Mooncy must have exaggerated ideas about my income. He will have to cut something off this; it can easily be reduced. I'll go down and see him at once.’

Mooney was seen, and professed his readiness to alter any part; to make a perfect hotch-potch of all the orders of architecture, in fact, if it were desired. The design was pared down; much that was dear to the architect's heart was renounced by him; some of Mr. Wishart's suggestions were adopted; and finally, there was completed a representation of a house which, Mr. Mooney said, in a burst of enthusiasm, any English nobleman might be proud of.

Then the work began. All day long the clang of the workmen's hammers echoed from side to side of the creek. There were great stacks of timber, odorous with the pleasant scent of freshly-sawn kauri, and piles of bricks and mortar, in front of the cleared space where the house was to stand; there was great rattling and jolting of drags over the road which had been levelled and cut through the bush; and there was great shouting of drivers whose tempers were always being tried to the utmost, so it page 165 seemed from the tone of their remonstrances with disobliging or overworked horses. Men were fencing, other men were levelling the ground near the house and planting the garden and shrubberies. Noise and bustle and the busiest activity were everywhere.

The strange and sudden change from the old sweet solitude of the place frightened away the birds that had been wont to sing among the trees. Abashed little wrens and cautious clever tuis fled away into the darkest thickets of the bush, there to warble out their songs in quietude. The pheasants made their nests in more private places than ever that season; and no wild duck was so simple as to convoy her young brood along the waters of the creek where, in quieter times, so many downy little ducklings had taken their first swim.

‘Yes, it's wonderful what money will do, Mary Anne,’ said Mr. Bailey, who, owing to his convenient propinquity, had all these improvements directly under his eye, and had benefited himself by taking part in the work. ‘We've had this place of ours eight years, and in our humble way we've tried to improve. Haven't I almost gone to the length of swearing—that doesn't sound well—haven't I vowed every year that I'd build a good dairy, and put two more rooms to the house, and never done it? And haven't I always had it in my mind to make an easy road up to the house, and never done that? While here's Mr. Wishart, it's just like a fairy tale with him. He's only to hold up a wand, as one may say, page 166 and things grow like magic. I'm not envious; if I was, I'd soon root such a nasty feeling out of myself; but it does make one feel melancholy when one has to work years for what comes so easy to some people.’

‘Don't be downhearted,’ said Mrs. Bailey. ‘I thought you'd resolved to give up complaining.’

‘Oh, I'm not complaining. Bless you! I'd not change places with him; but there's this tendency in me, as I've often told you, I feel I'm too fond of money. I'm sure it's mercifully designed I'm not to have any. I'm certain, Mary Anne, that if such an unlikely thing should happen as our getting rich,’—Mrs. Bailey sighed softly,—‘I should turn out a regular old miser, hoarding up my gold in flower-pots, maybe, as I've heard of being done, and going out at night to count it.’

‘I don't see much chance of that,’ observed his wife.

‘There's such an unnatural kind of joy comes over me at the sight of money—when I see a sovereign even,’ said Mr. Bailey.

‘Perhaps it's because you don't see them often enough,’ said Mrs. Bailey, shrewdly.

‘Well, we do without it. I wonder whether Mr. Wishart ever was poor,’

‘Like enough,’ said Mrs. Bailey. ‘I should'nt wonder now if he had begun life with next to nothing.’

‘Why, you know every one begins life with nothing,’ truthfully asserted Mr. Bailey; ‘but I believe that when a man once gets into the way of making page 167 money he can't very well stop himself. It's the start that's wanted, that's all. Money attracts money; rich men keep on getting richer——’

‘Oh, dear me,’ implored his wife, ‘why will you always be talking about riches?’

‘I can't help it,’ said poor Mr. Bailey. ‘I know I ought to think of better things. I'll go to my work which is of a paying kind this time. If it turns out well, Mary Anne, you shall have a new dress of the colour of gold. I've seen ladies wearing it.’

The time wore on. The house grew from an unsightly framework into a stately pile, and gardens began to bloom around it. Mr. Wishart would not allow any of the fine old trees to be needlessly felled, so that the beautiful park-like groves and coppices remained unharmed, and one might fancy that the house, peeping out from amongst the trees, had been a home for generations, and that its first owners had been more than ordinarily skilled in landscape gardening.

But Mr. Wishart's endeavours to alter and destroy as little as possible were very unwillingly seconded by his gardener, a man of despotic tendencies, as most gardeners are. Accustomed to mete out life or death to the plants depending on his care; to lop, prune, or cut down whenever he felt disposed, he had come to consider himself absolute in his sovereignty of the garden, and accountable to no man in his management of it, while he was even very chary of paying the usual tribute of fruit and flowers page 168 to his master. His ideas were framed on a pattern peculiar to gardeners. He hated everything that had not been done in his time. Every tree which he had not planted he longed to cut down, and no flower which his hand had not tended could find favour in his eyes. Unhappily his destructive tendencies were strongest when he came into contact with Nature herself. Then indeed he hacked, hewed, and mutilated without merecy. He was now prepared to destroy every representative of the vegetable kingdom which did not exactly fit into his plans. A tree six inches out of some imaginary line, a branch a foot nearer the ground than he thought any branch should be, were doomed. Fearing that two-thirds of his forest-trees would be annihilated, and the remainder be trimmed up like hop poles, too high even for giraffes to browse upon, Mr. Wishart superintended his gardener closely, argued with him, and quarrelled with him more than once. Murdoch (the gardener) chose to consider himself an injured man, and being obliged to yield made a virtue of it, going about his work in the most resigned and self-sacrificing spirit. He determined to console himself with a design in carpet-bedding which should blaze with colour—rings within squares, and stars within rings of brilliant blue, orange, and scarlet. He could hardly believe his own ears when Mr. Wishart refused to Countenance this great idea.

‘Carpet-bedding is an abomination, Murdoch,’ he said, shortly.

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‘Well, sir,’ said Murdoch, ‘it's seen in every gentleman's garden at home. Any place that's laid out in real good style has it.’

‘Very likely,’ said his master. ‘I don't see why we should have it here. I prefer to follow my own plan, though it may not be stylish.’

‘At the Laird of Balgownie's,’ continued Murdoch, ‘we turr-rned up the whole of the lawn, and put it into carrpet-beds—a grand design!’

‘The Laird of Balgownie may surround himself with carpet-beds, but I shan't follow his example,’ said Mr. Wishart.

‘There's no accounting for tastes, of course, sir,’ remarked Murdoch lugubriously, ‘especially of those who've not studied horticultural matters; but if I were laying out a garden to suit myself——’

‘It would be a mass of carpet-bedding,’ said Mr. Wishart. ‘Unfortunately, Murdoch, you are laying out a garden to suit me.’

Which Murdoch did, after much grumbling. He was deeply wounded in his feelings, and groaned in spirit as he planted his flowers indiscriminately, in the most old-fashioned way, all to please his master, as he was careful to explain to every other gardener who saw the place.

When the house was almost finished, and when Murdoch's flowers were taking root and blooming in a manner that soothed his bruised and broken spirit, Mr. Wishart, instead of riding out alone, would often bring his sister with him, thinking it was time she page 170 should see with her own eyes what had been accomplished. And one day they had another companion, a lively little lady who rode light as a fairy, and was as merry as one; often carolling a song; oftener still, laughing, and chattering nonsense, it might be, but nonsense that was very pleasant to listen to. It was creditable to her good temper and cheerful disposition that she could thus beguile the way, for she found it long and tiring. She took no pleasure in the finest views when conjoined with bad roads, and she was not accustomed to rising early and riding far away into the country while yet the shadows were long and the dew white upon the grass. Maud enjoyed these things, or pretended to enjoy them. For herself, she would have liked to travel through beautiful scenery, reposing on velvety cushions, in a luxuriously easy carriage, and with a companion who could either talk amusingly when she pleased to be silent, or listen with graciousness to her softly-murmured approval of the entertainment nature had been good enough to provide. But to toil through the same romantic country on horseback or on foot, ah, what hard work, and how unreasonable that others should expect her to admire all she saw, and to rejoice in the discomforts of the journey!

To her also it was wearying to stand so long on that tower of observation, which, thanks to Mr. Mooney's art, was now a stately appanage of the house, and which had been built in order to gain a view of the sea. Maud and Mr. Wishart seemed page 171 never to tire of gazing from this elevated position. And their enthusiasm was not uncalled for, though this captious lady could not share it. There was a prospect from that tower which ought not to have palled upon her so soon. The autumn day had all the softened beauty of an Indian summer; the forest was wrapped in a blue mist, bluer and bluer in the distance. The sun could not dazzle through the silvery veil that overspread the sky, and the smoke of far-off bush-fires curled slowly upwards, vanishing in a blue purer and more profound than ever artist dreamed of.

There were no rich autumnal tints, no flashes of brilliant orange or crimson among the dark evergreens. Only grave soft shades of green and purple; dark brown green on the low hills, clothed with fern and tea-tree, light green where the tree-ferns grew by the hidden streams, and sombre purplish green where the forest folded over range after range. Miles of forest—dark, mysterious, impenetrable only a few years past; but now sadly wasted in many parts, blackened with fire, maimed and scarred by the axe. Here and there on the cleared lands stood some little gray house amidst its roughly-farmed fields. There was the glint of a stream, now and again, through the dark masses of trees. A stream! there are scores—hundreds. Every shaded hollow in the forest, every dark furrow on the hills, has its stream, rushing clear and cold from the heights, over the rocks in cascades, into deep still pools blacker than night, out page 172 into the sunshine at last, to meander slowly through the valley. It is a land of running waters.

But beyond all this, far to the westward, what is that shimmering, changing sheet of blue, gilded by the sun in the day, silvered by the moon at night? It is the sea; and that dull murmur is the sound of its restless waves breaking on the coast.

Yes, it was beautiful, the tired lady assented, but she was all the while thinking of that rough ride over hill and dale which would have to be repeated before nightfall. However, she was too good-natured to show any signs of weariness or impatience, so she admired with the other two, and occasionally added a soft, ‘How lovely!’ or ‘So nice!’ to their conversation.

When you looked at her face for the first time you would probably think it the prettiest you had ever seen. Features that were finely moulded, if they were very small; eyes that were beautifully bright and clear; a complexion that defied criticism, and that never paled from its delicate rose tints or grew coarse in colouring. Nothing could be prettier; nothing pleasanter than such a face smiling upon you, and it was nearly always smiling upon some one. But you might notice that no change of expression played upon its features. The everlasting smile would seem a simper before long, and possibly you might wish for a more intelligent expression of opinion than ‘So nice’;—you might even think, after a time, that some of the dovelike prettiness page 173 might have been advantageously exchanged for a few ideas.

However,—and well for human kind that it is so,—there are some happily-constituted people who can get on very well without ideas—can, in fact, manage to go through life creditably with a mind that is but ill-ballasted, while many of their fellow-creatures, clever but clumsy, are never able to bring their freights of great value into port. And there is this about ideas—not only has no human being ever loved another merely because he had them, but their presence in the brain of many an unlucky person (especially if they were new ones, and he was anxious to get them into other person's brains) has been known to stir up envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness. A modicum of talent is not nearly so dangerous. And no one knows how much may be made of a little talent, especially by a pretty young lady of whom every one must needs think charitably.

But it is impertinent thus to discourse of the qualities of one who has not been introduced by name. It was Miss Violet Palmer of whom this has been said, just seventeen years old, and seventeen times as pretty, amiable, and innocently ignorant as any description of mine can represent her.