jumped-up jobbing gardener who sees carnal embrace in every nook and cranny of the landskip!
thomasina: Septimus, they are not speaking of carnal embrace, are you, Mama?
lady croom: Certainly not. What do you know of carnal embrace?
thomasina: Everything, thanks to Septimus. In my opinion, Mr Noakes's scheme for the garden is perfect. It is a Salvator!
lady croom: What does she mean?
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noakes: (Answering the wrong question) Salvator Rosa, your ladyship, the painter. He is indeed the very exemplar of the picturesque style.
brice: Hodge, what is this?
Septimus: She speaks from innocence not from experience.
brice: You call it innocence? Has he ruined you, child? (Pause.)
Septimus: Answer your uncle!
thomasina: (To Septimus.) How is a ruined child different from a ruined castle?
Septimus: On such questions I defer to Mr Noakes.
noakes: (Out of his depth) A ruined castle is picturesque, certainly.
Septimus: That is the main difference. (To brice) I teach the classical authors. If I do not elucidate their meaning, who will?
brice: As her tutor you have a duty to keep her in ignorance.
lady croom: Do not dabble in paradox, Edward, it puts you in danger of fortuitous wit. Thomasina, wait in your bedroom.
thomasina: (Retiring) Yes, mama. I did not intend to get you into trouble, Septimus. I am very sorry for it. It is plain that there are some things a girl is allowed to understand, and these include the whole of algebra, but there are others, such as embracing a side of beef, that must be kept from her until she is old enough to have a carcass of her own.
lady croom: One moment.
brice: What is she talking about?
lady croom: Meat.
brice: Meat?
lady croom: Thomasina, you had better remain. Your
knowledge of the picturesque obviously exceeds anything the rest of us can offer. Mr Hodge, ignorance should be like an empty vessel waiting to be filled at the well of truth - not a cabinet of vulgar curios. Mr Noakes - now at last it is your turn-
noakes: Thank you, your ladyship -
lady croom: Your drawing is a very wonderful transformation. I would not have recognized my own garden but for your
ii
ingenious book - is it not? - look! Here is the Park as it appears to us now, and here as it might be when Mr Noakes has done with it. Where there is the familiar pastoral refinement of an Englishman's garden, here is an eruption of gloomy forest and towering crag, of ruins where there was never a house, of water dashing against rocks where there was neither spring nor a stone I could not throw the length of a cricket pitch. My hyacinth dell is become a haunt for hobgoblins, my Chinese bridge, which I am assured is superior to the one at Kew, and for all I know at Peking, is usurped by a fallen obelisk overgrown with briars -
noakes: (Bleating) Lord Little has one very similar-
lady croom: I cannot relieve Lord Little's misfortunes by adding to my own. Pray, what is this rustic hovel that presumes to superpose itself on my gazebo?
noakes: That is the hermitage, madam.
lady croom: I am bewildered.
brice: It is all irregular, Mr Noakes.
noakes: It is, sir. Irregularity is one of the chiefest principles of the picturesque style -
lady croom: But Sidley Park is already a picture, and a most amiable picture too. The slopes are green and gende. The trees are companionably grouped at intervals that show them to advantage. The rill is a serpentine ribbon unwound from the lake peaceably contained by meadows on which the right amount of sheep are tastefully arranged - in short, it is nature as God intended, and I can say with the painter, 'Et in Arcadia egoV 'Here I am in Arcadia,' Thomasina.
thomasina: Yes, mama, if you would have it so.
lady croom: Is she correcting my taste or my translation?
thomasina: Neither are beyond correction, mama, but it was your geography caused the doubt.
lady croom: Something has occurred with the girl since I saw her last, and surely that was yesterday. How old are you this morning?
thomasina: Thirteen years and ten months, mama.
lady croom: Thirteen years and ten months. She is not due to be pert for six months at the earliest, or to have notions of
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taste for much longer. Mr Hodge, I hold you accountable. Mr Noakes, back to you -
noakes: Thank you, my -
lady croom: You have been reading too many novels by Mrs Radcliffe, that is my opinion. This is a garden for The Castle ofOtranto or The Mysteries of Udolpho -
chater: The Castle ofOtranto, my lady, is by Horace Walpole.
noakes: (Thrilled) Mr Walpole the gardener?!
lady croom: Mr Chater, you are a welcome guest at Sidley Park but while you are one, The Castle ofOtranto was written by whomsoever I say it was, otherwise what is the point of being a guest or having one? (The distant popping of guns heard.) Well, the guns have reached the brow -1 will speak to his lordship on the subject, and we will see by and by - (She stands looking out.) Ah! - your friend has got down a pigeon, Mr Hodge. (Calls out.) Bravo, sir!
Septimus: The pigeon, I am sure, fell to your husband or to your son, your ladyship - my schoolfriend was never a sportsman.
brice: (Looking out) Yes, to Augustus! - bravo, lad!
lady croom: (Outside) Well, come along! Where are my troops? (brice, noakes and chater obediently follow her, chater making a detour to shake Septimus's hand fervently.)
chater: My dear Mr Hodge!
(chater leaves also. The guns are heard again, a little closer.)
thomasina: Pop, pop, pop ... I have grown up in the sound of guns like the child of a siege. Pigeons and rooks in the close season, grouse on the heights from August, and the pheasants to follow - partridge, snipe, woodcock, and teal -pop - pop - pop, and the culling of the herd. Papa has no need of the recording angel, his life is written in the game book.
Septimus: A calendar of slaughter. 'Even in Arcadia, there am I!'
thomasina: Oh, phooey to Death!
(She dips a pen and takes it to the reading stand.)
I will put in a hermit, for what is a hermitage without a
hermit? Are you in love with my mother, Septimus?
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Septimus: You must not be cleverer than your elders. It is not polite.
thomasina: Am I cleverer?
Septimus: Yes. Much.
thomasina: Well, I am sorry, Septimus. (She pauses in her drawing and produces a small envelope from her pocket.) Mrs Chater came to the music room with a note for you. She said it was of scant importance, and that therefore I should carry it to you with the utmost safety, urgency and discretion. Does carnal embrace addle the brain?
