CHAPTER THE NINETEENTH

Dorothy and I were having a chat about some designs in Treillage when Friswell sauntered into the garden, bringing with him a tine book on the Influence of Cimabue on the later work of Andrea del Castagno. He had promised to lend it to me, when in a moment of abstraction I had professed an interest in the subject.

Dorothy showed him her sketches of the new scheme, explaining that it was to act as a screen for fig-tree corner, where the material for a bonfire had been collecting for some time in view of the Peace that we saw in our visions of a new heaven and a new earth long promised to the sons of men.

Friswell was good enough to approve of the designs. He said he thought that Treillage would come into its own again before long. He always liked it, because somehow it made him think of the Bible.

I did not like that. I shun topics that induce thoughts of the Bible in Friswell's brain. He is at his worst when thinking and expressing his thoughts on the Bible, and the worst of his worst is that it is just then he makes himself interesting.

But how on earth Treillage and the Bible should become connected in any man's mind would pass the wit of man to explain. But when the appearance of my Temple compelled Friswell to think of Oxford Street, London, W., when his errant memory was carrying him on to the Princess's Theatre, on whose stage a cardboard thing was built—about as like my Temple as the late Temple of the Archdiocese of Canterbury was like the late Dr. Parker of the City Temple.

“I don't recollect any direct or mystical reference to Treillage in the Book,” said I, with a leaning toward sarcasm in my tone of voice. “Perhaps you saw something of the kind on or near the premises of the Bible Society.”

“It couldn't be something in a theatre again,” suggested Dorothy.

“I believe it was on a garden wall in Damascus, but I'm not quite sure,” said he thoughtfully. “Damascus is a garden city in itself. Thank Heaven it is safe for some centuries more. That ex-All Highest who had designs on it would fain have made it Potsdamascus.”

“He would have done his devil best, pulling down the Treillage you saw there, because it was too French. Don't you think, Friswell, that you should try to achieve some sort of Treillage for your memory? You are constantly sending out shoots that come to nothing for want of something firm to cling to.”

“Not a bad notion, by any means,” said he. “But it has been tried by scores of experts on the science of—I forget the name of the science: I only know that its first two letters are mn.”

“Mnemonics,” said Dorothy kindly.

“What a memory you have!” cried Friswell. “A memory for the word that means memory. I think most of the artificial memories or helps to memory are ridiculous. They tell you that if you wish to remember one thing you must be prepared to recollect half a dozen other things—you are to be led to your destination by a range of sign-posts.”

“I shouldn't object to the sign-posts providing that the destination was worth arriving at,” said I. “But if it's only the front row of the dress circle at the Princess's Theatre, Oxford Street, London, West—”

“Or Damascus, Middle East,” he put in, when I paused to breathe. “Yes, I agree with you; but after all, it wasn't Damascus, but only the General's house at Gibraltar.”

“Have mercy on our frail systems, Friswell,” I cried. “'We are but men, are we!' as Swinburne lilts. Think of our poor heads. Another such abrupt memory-post and we are undone. How is it with you, my Dorothy?”

“I seek a guiding hand,” said she. “Come, Mr. Friswell; tell us how a General at Gib, suggested the Bible to you.”

“It doesn't seem obvious, does it?” said he. “But it so happened that the noblest traditions of the Corps of Sappers was maintained by the General at Gib, in my day. He was mad, married, and a Methodist. He had been an intimate friend and comrade of Gordon, and he invited subscriptions from all the garrison for the Palestine Exploration Fund. He gave monthly lectures on the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, and at every recurring Feast of Tabernacles he had the elaborate trellis that compassed about his house, hung with branches of Mosaic trees. That's the connection—as easily obvious as the origin of sin.”

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“Just about the same,” said I. “Your chain of sign-posts is complete: Treillage—General—Gibraltar—Gordon—Gospel. That is how you are irresistibly drawn to think of the Bible when you see a clematis climbing up a trellis.”

“My dear,” said Dorothy, “you know that I don't approve of any attempt at jesting on the subject of the Bible.”

“I wasn't jesting—only alliterative,” said I. “Surely alliteration is not jocular.”

“It's on the border,” she replied with a nod.

“The Bible is all right if you are only content not to take it too seriously, my dear lady,” said Friswell. “It does not discourage simple humour—on the contrary, it contains many examples of the Oriental idea of fun.”

“Oh, Mr. Friswell! You will be saying next that it is full of puns,” said Dorothy.

“I know of one, and it served as the foundation of the Christian Church,” said he.

“My dear Friswell, are you not going too far?”

“Not a step. The choosing of Peter is the foundation of your Church, and the authority assumed by its priests. Simon Barjonah, nicknamed Peter, is one of the most convincingly real characters to be found in any book, sacred or profane. How any one can read his record and doubt the inspiration of the Gospels is beyond me. I have been studying Simon Barjonah for many years—a conceited braggart and a coward—a blasphemer—maudlin! After he had been cursing and swearing in his denial of his Master, he went out and wept bitterly. Yes, but he wasn't man enough to stand by the Son of God—he was not even man enough to go to the nearest tree and hang himself. Judas Iscariot was a nobler character than Simon Barjonah, nicknamed Peter.”

“And what does all this mean, Mr. Friswell?”

“It means that it's fortunate that Truth is not dependent upon the truth of its exponents or affected by their falseness,” said he, and so took his departure.

We went on with our consideration of our Treillage—after a considerable silence. But when a silence comes between Dorothy and me it does not take the form of an impenetrable wall, nor yet that of a yew hedge with gaps in it; but rather that of a grateful screen of sweet-scented honeysuckle. It is the silence within a bower of white clematis—the silence of “heaven's ebon vault studded with stars unutterably bright”—the silence of the stars which is an unheard melody to such as have ears to hear.

“Yes,” said I at last, “I am sure that you are right: an oval centre from which the laths radiate—that shall be our new trellis.”

And so it was.

Our life in the Garden of Peace is, you will perceive, something of what the catalogues term “of rampant growth.” It is as digressive as a wild convolvulus. I perceive this now that I have taken to writing about it. It is not literary, but discursive. It throws out, it may he, the slenderest of tendrils in one direction; but this “between the bud and blossom,” sometimes Hies off in another, and the effect of the whole is pleasantly unforeseen.

It is about time that we had a firm trellis for the truant tendrils.

And so I will discourse upon Treillage as a feature of the garden.

Its effect seems to have been lost sight of for a long time, but happily within recent years its value as an auxiliary to decoration is being recognised. I have seen lovely hits in France as well as in Italy. It is one of the oldest imitations of Nature to be found in connection with garden-making, and to me it represents exactly what place art should take in that modification of Nature which we call a garden. We want everything that grows to be seen to the greatest advantage. Nature grows rampant climbers, and if we allowed them to continue rampageous, we should have a jungle instead of a garden; so we agree to give her a helping band by offering her aspiring children something pleasant to cling to from the first hour of their sending forth grasping fingers in search of the right ladder for their ascent. A trellis is like a family living: it provides a decorative career for at least one member of the family.

The usual trellis-work, as it is familiarly called: has the merit of being cheap—just now it is more than twice the price that it was five years ago; but still it does not run into a great deal of money unless it is used riotously, and this, let me say, is the very worst way in which it could be adapted to its purpose. To fix it all along the face of a wall of perhaps forty feet in length is to force it to do more than it should be asked to do. The wall is capable of supporting a climbing plant without artificial aid. But if the wall is unsightly, it were best hidden, and the eye can bear a considerable length of simple trellis without becoming weary. In this connection, however, my experience forces me to believe that one should shun the “extending” form of lattice-shaped work, but choose the square-mesh pattern.

This, however, is only Treillage in its elementary form. If one wishes to have a truly effective screen offering a number of exquisite outlines for the entwining of some of the loveliest things that grow, one must go further in one's choice than the simple diagonals and rectagonals—the simple verticals and horizontals. The moment that curves are introduced one gets into a new field of charm, and I know of no means of gaining better effects than by elaborating this form of joinery as the French did two centuries ago, before the discovery was made that every form of art in a garden is inartistic. But possibly if the French treillageurs—for the art had many professors—had been a little more modest in their claims the landscapests would not have succeeded in their rebellion. But the treillageurs protested against such beautiful designs as they turned out being obscured by plants clambering over them, and they offered in exchange repoussé metal foliage, affirming that this was incomparably superior to a natural growth. Ordinary people refused to admit so ridiculous a claim, and a cloud came over the prospects of these artists. Recently, however, with a truer rapprochement between the “schools” of garden design, I find several catalogues of eminent firms illustrating their reproductions of some beautiful French and Dutch work.

Personally, I have a furtive sympathy with the conceited Frenchmen. It seems to me that it would be a great shame to allow the growths upon a fine piece of Treillage to become so gross as to conceal all the design of the joinery. Therefore I hold that such ambitious climbers as Dorothy Perkins or Crimson Rambler should be provided with an unsightly wall and bade to make it sightly, and that to the more graceful and less distracting clematis should any first-class woodwork be assigned. This scheme will give both sides a chance in the summer, and in the winter there will be before our eyes a beautiful thing to look upon, even though it is no longer supporting a plant, and so fulfilling the ostensible object of its existence.

There should be no limit to the decorative possibilities of the Treillage lath. A whole building can be constructed on this basis. I have seen two or three very successful attempts in such a direction in Holland; and quite enchanting did they seem, overclambered by Dutch honeysuckle. I learned that all were copied from eighteenth century designs. I saw another Dutch design in an English garden in the North.

It took the form of a sheltered and canopied seat. It had a round tower at each side and a gracefully curved back. The “mesh” used in this little masterpiece was one of four inches. It was painted in a tint that looks best of all in garden word—the gray of the echeveria glauca, and the blooms of a beautiful Aglaia rose were playing hide-and-seek among the laths of the roof. I see no reason why hollow pillars for roses should not be made on the Treillage principle. I have seen such pillars supporting the canopied roof of more than one balcony in front of houses in Brighton and Hove. I fancy that at one time these were fashionable in such places. In his fine work entitled The English Home from Charles I. to George IV., Mr. J. Alfred Gotch gives two illustrations of Treillage adapted to balconies.

But to my mind, its most effective adaptation is in association with a pergola, especially if near the house. To be sure, if the space to be filled is considerable, the work for both sides would be somewhat expensive; but then the cost of such things is very elastic; it is wholly dependent upon the degrees of elaboration in the design. But in certain situations a pergola built up in this way may be made to do duty as an anteroom or a loggia, and as such it gives a good return for an expenditure of money; and if constructed with substantial uprights—I should recommend the employment of an iron core an inch in diameter for these, covered, I need hardly say, with the laths—and painted every second year, the structure should last for half a century. Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema carried out a marvellous scheme of this type at his house in St. John's Wood. It was on a Dutch plan, but was not a copy of any existing arrangement of gardens. I happen to know that the design was elaborated by himself and his wife on their leaving his first St. John's Wood home: it was a model of what may be called “l'haut Treillage.”

Once again I would venture to point out the advantage of having a. handsome thing to look at during the winter months when an ordinary pergola looks its worst.

Regarding pergolas in general a good deal might be written. Their popularity in England just now is well deserved. There is scarcely a garden of any dimensions that is reckoned complete unless it encloses one within its walls. A more admirable means of dividing a ground space so as to make two gardens of different types, could scarcely be devised, in the absence of a yew or box growth of hedge; nor could one imagine a more interesting way of passing from the house to the garden than beneath such a roof of roses. In this case it should play the part of one of those “vistas” which were regarded as indispensable in the eighteenth century. It should have a legitimate entrance and it should not stop abruptly. If the exigencies of space make for such abruptness, not a moment's delay there should be in the planting of a large climbing shrub on each side of the exit so as to embower it, so to speak. A vase or a short pillar should compel the dividing of the path a little further on, and the grass verge—I am assuming the most awkward of exits—should he rounded off in every direction, so as to cause the ornament to become the feature up to which the pergola path is leading. I may mention incidentally at this moment that such an isolated ornament as I have suggested gives a legitimate excuse for dividing any garden walk that has a tendency to weary the eye by its persistent straightness. Some years ago no one ever thought it necessary to make an excuse for a curve in a garden walk. The gardener simply got out his iron and cut out whatever curve he pleased on each side, and the thing was done. But nowadays one must have a natural reason for every deflection in a path; and an obstacle is introduced only to be avoided.

I need hardly say that there are pergolas and pergolas. I saw one that cost between two and three thousand pounds in a garden beyond Beaulieu, between Mont Boron and Monte Carlo—an ideal site. It was made up of porphyry columns with Corinthian carved capitals and wrought-iron work of a beautiful design, largely, but not lavishly, gilt, as a sort of frieze running from pillar to pillar; a bronze vase stood between each of the panels, and the handles of these were also gilt. I have known of quite respectable persons creating quite presentable pergolas for less money. In that favoured part of the world, however, everything bizarre and extravagant seems to find a place and to look in keeping with its surroundings.

The antithesis to this gorgeous and thoroughly beautiful piece of work I have seen in many gardens in England. It is the “rustic” pergola, a thing that may be acquired for a couple of pounds and that may, with attention, last a couple of years. Anything is better than this—no pergola at all is better than this. In Italy one sees along the roadsides numbers of these structures overgrown with vines; but never yet did I see one that was not either in a broken-down condition or rapidly approaching such a condition; although the poles are usually made of chestnut which should last a long time—unlike our larch, the life of which when cut into poles and inserted in the cold earth does not as a rule go beyond the third year.

Rut there is something workable in this line between the three-thousand-pounder of the Riviera, and the three-pounder of Clapham. If people will only keep their eyes open for posts suitable for the pillars of a pergola, they will be able to collect a sufficient number to make a start with inside a year. The remainder of the woodwork I should recommend being brought already shaped and creosoted from some of those large sawmills where such work is made a speciality of. But there is no use getting anything that is not strong and durable, and every upright pillar should be embedded in concrete or cement. For one of my own pergolas—I do not call them pergolas but colonnades—I found a disused telegraph pole and sawed it into lengths of thirty inches each. These I sank eighteen inches in the ground at regular intervals and on each I doweled two oak poles six inches in diameter. They are standing well; for telegraph posts which have been properly treated are nearly as durable as iron. All the woodwork for this I got ready sawn and “dipped” from a well-known factory at Croydon. It is eighty feet long and paved throughout. One man was able to put it up inside a fine fortnight in the month of January.

A second colonnade that I have is under forty feet in length. I made one side of it against a screen of sweetbrier roses which had grown to a height of twenty feet in five years. The making of it was suggested to me by the chance I had of buying at housebreaker's price a number of little columns taken from a shop that was being pulled down to give place, as usual, to a new cinema palace.

An amusing sidelight upon the imperiousness of fashion was afforded us when the painter set to work upon these. They had once been treated in that form of decoration known as “oak grained”—that pale yellow colour touched with an implement technically called a comb, professing to give to ordinary deal the appearance of British oak, and possibly deceiving a person here and there who had never seen oak. But when my painter began to burn off this stuff he discovered that the column had actually been papered and then painted and grained. This made his work easy, for he was able to tear the paper away in strips. But when he had done this he made the further discovery that the wood underneath was good oak with a natural grain showing!

Could anything be more ridiculous than the fashion of sixty or seventy years ago, when the art of graining had reached its highest level? Here were beautiful oak columns which only required to be waxed to display to full advantage the graceful natural “feathering” of the wood, papered over and then put into the hands of the artist to make it by his process of “oak-graining” as unlike oak as the basilica of St. Mark is unlike Westminster Abbey!

But for a large garden where everything is on a heroic scale, the only suitable pergola is one made up of high brick or stone piers, with massive oak beams for the roof. Such a structure will last for a century or two, improving year by year. The only question to consider is the proper proportions that it should assume—the relations of the length to the breadth and to the height. On such points I dare not speak. The architect who has had experience of such structures must be consulted. I have seen some that have been carried out without reference to the profession, and to my mind their proportions were not right. One had the semblance of being stunted, another was certainly not sufficiently broad by at least two feet.

In this connection I may be pardoned if I give it as my opinion that most pergolas suffer from lack of breadth. Six feet is the narrowest breadth possible for one that is eight feet high to the cross beams. I think that a pergola in England should be paved, not in that contemptible fashion, properly termed “crazy,” but with either stone slabs or paving tiles; if one can afford to have the work done in panels, so much the better. In this way nothing looks better than small bricks set in herring-bone patterns. If one can afford a course of coloured bricks, so much the better. The riotous gaiety of colour overhead should be responded to in some measure underfoot.

There is no reason against, but many strong reasons for, interrupting the lines of a long pergola by making a dome of open woodwork between the four middle columns of support—assuming that all the rest of the woodwork is straight—-and creating a curved alcove with a seat between the two back supports, thus forming at very little extra expense, an additional bower to the others which will come into existence year by year in a garden that is properly looked after.

When I was a schoolboy I was brought by my desk-mate to his father's place, and escorted round the grounds by his sister, for whom I cherished a passion that I hoped was not hopeless. This was while my friend was busy looking after the nets for the lawn tennis. There were three summer-houses in various parts of the somewhat extensive grounds, and in every one of them we came quite too suddenly upon a pair of quite too obvious lovers.

The sister cicerone hurried past each with averted eyes—after the first glance—and looked at me and smiled.

We were turning into another avenue after passing the third of these love-birds, when she stopped abruptly.

“We had better not go on any farther,” said she.

“Oh, why not?” I cried.

“Well, there's another summer-house down there among the lilacs,” she replied.

We stood there while she looked around, plainly in search of a route that should be less distracting. It was at this moment of indecision that I gazed at her. I thought that I had never seen her look so lovely. 1 felt myself trembling. I know that my eyes were fixed upon the ground—I could not have spoken the words if I had looked up to her—she was a good head and shoulder taller than I was:—

“Look here, Miss Fanny, there may be no one in the last of the summer-houses. Let us go there and sit—sit—the same as the others.”

“Oh, no; I should be afraid,” said she.

“Oh, I swear to you that you shall have no cause, Miss Fanny; I know what is due to the one you love; you will be quite safe—sacred.”

“What do you know about the one I love?” she asked—and there was a smile in her voice.

“I know the one who loves you,” I said warmly.

“I'm so glad,” she cried. “I know that he is looking for me everywhere, and if he found us together in a summer-house he would be sure to kill you. Captain Tyson is a frightfully jealous man, and you are too nice a boy to be killed. Do you mind running round by the rhododendrons and telling Bob that he may wear my tennis shoes to-day? I got a new pair yesterday.”

I went slowly toward the rhododendrons. When I got beyond their shelter I looked back.

I did not see her, but I saw the sprightly figure of a naval man crossing the grass toward where I had left her, and I knew him to be Commander Tyson, R.N.

Their second son is Commander Tyson, R. N., today.

But from that hour I made up my mind that a properly designed garden should have at least five summer-houses.

I have just made my fifth.