‘One “real” will cover the lot, dear.’
Chapter Seventeen
ARRIVING at the Chelsea Flower Show, Lady Mont said thoughtfully: ‘I’m meetin’ Boswell and Johnson at the calceolarias, Dinny. What a crowd!’
‘Yes, and all plain. Do they come, Auntie, because they’re yearning for beauty they haven’t got?’
‘I can’t get Boswell and Johnson to yearn. There’s Hilary! He’s had that suit ten years. Take this and run for tickets, or he’ll try and pay.’
With a five-pound note Dinny slid towards the wicket, avoiding her uncle’s eyes. She secured four tickets, and turned smiling.
‘I saw you being a serpent,’ he said. ‘Where are we going first? Azaleas? I like to be thoroughly sensual at a flower show.’
Lady Mont’s deliberate presence caused a little swirl in the traffic, while her eyes from under slightly drooped lids took in the appearance of people selected, as it were, to show off flowers.
The tent they entered was warm with humanity and perfume, though the day was damp and cool. The ingenious beauty of each group of blossoms was being digested by variegated types of human being linked only through that mysterious air of kinship which comes from attachment to the same pursuit. This was the great army of flower-raisers – growers of primulas in pots, of nasturtiums, gladioli and flags in London back gardens, of stocks, hollyhocks and sweet-williams in little provincial plots; the gardeners of larger grounds; the owners of hothouses and places where experiments are made – but not many of these, for they had already passed through or would come later. All moved with a prying air, as if marking down their own next ventures; and alongside the nurserymen would stop and engage as if making bets. And the subdued murmur of voices, cockneyfied, countrified, cultivated, all commenting on flowers, formed a hum like that of bees, if not so pleasing. This subdued expression of a national passion, walled-in by canvas, together with the scent of the flowers, exercised on Dinny an hypnotic effect, so that she moved from one brilliant planted posy to another, silent and with her slightly upturned nose twitching delicately.
Her aunt’s voice roused her.
‘There they are!’ she said, pointing with her chin.
Dinny saw two men standing so still that she wondered if they had forgotten why they had come. One had a reddish moustache and sad cow-like eyes; the other looked like a bird with a game wing; their clothes were stiff with Sundays. They were not talking, nor looking at the flowers, but as if placed there by Providence without instructions.
‘Which is Boswell, Auntie?’
‘No moustache,’ said Lady Mount; ‘Johnson has the green hat. He’s deaf. So like them.’
She moved towards them, and Dinny heard her say:
‘Ah!’
The two gardeners rubbed their hands on the sides of their trousered legs, but did not speak.
‘Enjoyin’ it?’ she heard her aunt say. Their lips moved, but no sound came forth that she could catch. The one she had called Boswell lifted his cap and scratched his head. Her aunt was pointing now at the calceolarias, and suddenly the one in the green hat began to speak. He spoke so that, as Dinny could see, not even her aunt could hear a word, but his speech went on and on and seemed to afford him considerable satisfaction. Every now and then she heard her aunt say: ‘Ah!’ But Johnson went on. He stopped suddenly; her aunt said ‘Ah!’ again and came back to her.
‘What was he saying?’ asked Dinny.
‘No,’ said Lady Mont, ‘not a word. You can’t. But it’s good for him.’ She waved her hand to the two gardeners, who were again standing without sign of life, and led the way.
They passed into the rose tent now, and Dinny looked at her watch. She had appointed to meet Wilfrid at the entrance of it.
She cast a hurried look back. There he was! She noted that Hilary was following his nose, Aunt May following Hilary, Aunt Em talking to a nurseryman. Screened by a prodigious group of ‘K. of Ks.’ she skimmed over to the entrance, and, with her hands in Wilfrid’s, forgot entirely where she was.
‘Are you feeling strong, darling? Aunt Em is here, and my Uncle Hilary and his wife. I should so like them to know you, because they all count in our equation.’
He seemed to her at that moment like a highly strung horse asked to face something it has not faced before.
‘If you wish, Dinny.’
They found Lady Mont involved with the representatives of ‘Plantem’s Nurseries’.
‘That one – south aspect and chalk. The nemesias don’t. It’s cross-country – they do dry so. The phloxes came dead. At least they said so: you can’t tell. Oh! Here’s my niece! Dinny, this is Mr Plantem. He often sends – Oh! … ah! Mr Desert! How d’you do? I remember you holdin’ Michael’s arms up at his weddin’.’ She had placed her hand in Wilfrid’s and seemingly forgotten it, the while her eyes from under their raised brows searched his face with a sort of mild surprise.