Glancing into the transplanter, Fitcher spotted the succulent stub of a bluish-grey plant – some kind of cactus, he took it to be – but there was no time for a closer look. Machete in hand, Fitcher went stroathing into the bushes in pursuit of the fleeing gardener.
Soon Fitcher was hacking through densely tangled greenery, with thorns and dashels clawing at his clothes. Although he had long since lost sight of the gardener, he went crashing ahead, until he broke free of the tangled undergrowth and found himself in a field of chest-high grass. On either side were towering talipots, arranged in straight lines, as if to flank an avenue. At the far end, rising out of the disordered foliage, were the remains of a small but well-proportioned cottage: tenacious saplings had taken root on its roof and its walls, tearing apart its tiles and timbers; a couple of shutters had been prised apart by creepers and were slapping against their frames with tired squeaks of their hinges.
Fitcher remembered the house, for it had been pointed out to him on his last visit: it was ‘Mon Plaisir’, built by the great Pierre Poivre himself. As he walked towards the cottage Fitcher’s steps were slowed by a pilgrim’s awe – here had lived the man who had lent his name to an entire genus, Poivrea. Fitcher could not help thinking that this was how an explorer might feel on beholding a ruined temple in the jungle – except that the irony, in this instance, was that the force that was devouring the temple was precisely the aspect of Nature that was enshrined within it.
Suddenly, just as Fitcher was about to step on the cracked flag-stones of the threshold, a figure appeared in the main doorway. It was the young gardener: he was dressed all proper-fashion now, in a jacket and hat, but in his hands he was holding a stout stick.
Fitcher came to a halt. ‘There’s no need to be getting eerself in a spudder now.’ Placing his machete on the ground, he stuck out his hand: ‘I’m Frederick Penrose – they call me Fitcher. I mean’ee no harm.’
‘That is for me to decide sir,’ said the youth, briskly, ignoring his hand. ‘And my jugement must wait until I know what has brought you here.’
His English, Fitcher noted, was perfectly fluent, yet there was something puzzling about it – not just the pallyvouzing idiom but also the intonation, which contained some notes that were strangely reminiscent of the speech of lascar crewmen.
‘I await your answer, sir,’ said the youth, with a hint of asperity.
Fitcher shifted his feet and scratched his beard. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘maybe both of us have come for the same thing.’
The youth frowned, as though he were trying to make sense of this statement, and on looking at him closely, Fitcher realized that he was even younger than he had thought, so young that his cheeks still had their adolescent bloom: indeed he was of an age at which many another fellow would have betrayed some apprehension, if not fear – yet there was no tremor in his voice, nor any other sign of the midgetty-morrows.
‘I do not understand, sir,’ said the gardener, ‘how you can speak of our purposes being the same when you do not know the raisons for my being here?’
‘It’s just that I see’d’ee back there,’ said Fitcher, ‘digging a hole to pitch that cactus.’
At this the gardener narrowed his eyes for a moment, and then a slight smile appeared on his face. ‘I think you are misled, sir,’ he said. ‘It is a long while since I touched a cactus.’
It was Fitcher’s turn to be puzzled now: he could not understand why the lad would go to the trouble of dissimulating over a matter like this. ‘What’re ee getting at, boy?’ he said a little testily. ‘Ee had a cactus in eer hands back there. I see’d’e with m’own eyes – ee can scarcely disknowledge it.’
The youth shrugged in a matter-of-fact way. ‘It is of no great consequence sir: just a simple meprise. Your error is so common that it may be easily forgiven.’
‘What’s that then?’ Fitcher was not used to being patronized in matters botanical and he bridled. ‘D’ee think I’m so green a gardener I wouldn’t know a cactus?’
The youth’s smile widened. ‘Since you are so sure of yourself, Mr Penrose, perhaps you would care to lay with me a wager?’
‘That’s what ee’re after, is it?’
Although not a betting man, Fitcher plunged a hand into his pocket and pulled out a silver dollar. ‘Here I’ll wager ee this – and I hope ee can match it too.’
‘Come then,’ said the lad cheerfully. ‘I will show you the parent plant, and you will see for yourself.’