Hello there,
It's Mandy here.
Thanks for joining me tonight and welcome back to Elizabeth and her German Garden.
I'm sad to say that it's the last chapter tonight.
I can't believe how quickly the 12 chapters have flown by and I've really enjoyed reading it to you,
So I hope you've enjoyed it too.
Several biographies of Elizabeth have been published over the years.
Her first biography,
Which was published in 1958,
Was written by her daughter Libet,
Under the pseudonym of Leslie de Charm.
Anyway,
We're ready to rejoin the three ladies on the sleigh ride in the dark where we left them at the end of last episode.
So it's chapter 12,
And before I go ahead,
Please feel free to make yourself really comfortable settling down into your chair or your bed.
Relaxing your hands.
Dropping your shoulders.
And softening your jaw.
That's wonderful.
If you're ready,
Then I shall begin.
Chapter 12.
Peter,
However,
Behaved beautifully on the way home,
And Irei and I,
At least,
Were as happy as possible driving back,
With all the glories of the western sky flashing at us every now and then,
At the end of a long avenue,
As we swiftly passed,
And later on,
When they had faded,
Myriads of stars in the narrow black strip of sky over our heads.
It was bitterly cold and Minora was silent and not in the least inclined to laugh with us as she had been six hours before.
Have you enjoyed yourself,
Miss Minora?
Inquired Irei,
As we got out of the forest onto the chaussée,
And the lights of the village before us twinkled in the distance.
How many degrees do you suppose there are now?
Was Minora's reply to this question.
Degrees of frost?
Oh dear me,
Are you cold?
Cried Iray solicitously.
Well it isn't exactly warm is it said menorah sulkily and irae pinched me well but think how much colder you would have been without all that fur you ate for lunch inside you she said And what a nice chapter you will be able to write about the Baltic,
Said I.
Why,
It is practically certain that you are the first English person who has ever been to just this part of it.
Isn't there some English poem,
Said Irae,
About being the first to ever burst?
Into that silent sea,
Finished Minora hastily.
You can't quote that without its context,
You know.
But I wasn't going to,
Said Irae meekly.
I only paused to breathe.
I must breathe or perhaps I might die.
The lights from my energetic friend's schloss shone brightly down upon us as we passed around the base of the hill on which it stands.
She is very proud of this hill,
As well she may be,
Seeing it is the only one in the whole district.
Do you never go there?
Asked Minora,
Jerking her head in the direction of the house.
Sometimes she is a very busy woman and I should feel I was in the way if I went often.
It would be interesting to see another North German interior,
Said Minora,
And I should be obliged if you would take me.
But I can't fall upon her suddenly with a strange girl,
I protested,
And we are not at all on such intimate terms as to justify my taking all my visitors to see her.
What do you want to see another interior for?
I can tell you what it is like,
And if you went,
Nobody would speak to you,
And if you were to ask questions and began to take notes,
The good lady would stare at you in the frankest amazement,
And think Elizabeth had brought a young lunatic out for an airing.
Everybody is not as patient as elizabeth added irae anxious to pay off old scores I would do a great deal for you,
Miss Minora,
I said,
But I can't do that.
"'If we went,
' said Irei,
"'Elizabeth and I would be placed with great ceremony "'on a sofa behind a large polished oval table "'with a crochet mat in the centre.
' "'It has got a crochet mat in the centre,
Hasn't it?
' I nodded.
"'And you would sit on one of the four little "'podgy,
Buttony,
Tassely red chairs "'that are arranged on the other side of the table "'facing the sofa.
"'They are red,
Elizabeth.
' Again I nodded.
The floor is painted yellow and there is no carpet except a rug in front of the sofa.
The paper is dark chocolate colour,
Almost black.
That is in order that after years of use the dirt may not show and the room need not be done up.
Dirt is like wickedness you see miss menorah it's being there never matters it is only when it shows so much as to be apparent to everybody that we are ashamed of it at intervals around the high walls are chairs and cabinets with lamps on them and in one corner is a great white cold stove or is it majolica she asked turning to me no it is white i said There are a great many lovely big windows,
All ready to let in the air and the sun,
But they are as carefully covered with brown lace curtains,
Under heavy stuffed ones,
As though a whole row of houses were just opposite,
With peering eyes at every window trying to look in,
Instead of there only being fields and trees and birds.
No fire,
No sunlight,
No books,
No flowers,
But a consoling smell of red cabbage coming up under the door,
Mixed in due season with soap suds.
When did you go there?
Asked Menorah.
Ah,
When did I go there indeed?
When did I not go there?
I have been calling there all my life.
Minora's eyes rolled doubtfully,
First at me,
Then at Irei,
From the depths of her head-wrappings.
They are large eyes with long dark eyelashes,
And far be it from me to deny that each eye taken by itself is fine,
But they are put in all wrong.
The only thing you would learn there,
Went Henri Rey,
Would be the significance of sofa corners in Germany.
If we three went there together,
I should be ushered into the right-hand corner of the sofa,
Because it is the place of honour and I'm the greatest stranger.
Elizabeth would be invited to seat herself in the left-hand corner as next in importance.
The hostess would sit near us in an armchair and you,
As a person of no importance whatever,
Would either be left to sit where you could or would be put on a chair facing us,
And with the entire breadth of the table between us,
To mark the immense social gulf that separates the married woman from the mere virgin.
These sofa corners make the drawing of nice distinctions possible in a way that nothing else could.
The world might come to an end and create less sensation in doing it than you would,
Miss Minora,
If by any chance you got into the right-hand corner of one.
The duo put on a chair on the other side of the table,
Places you at once in the scale of precedence,
And exactly defines your social position,
Or rather,
Your complete want of a social position.
And Irei tilted her nose,
Ever so little,
Heavenwards.
If,
She continued,
As Menora made no reply appreciative of this suggestion,
From want and hunger,
And when she did appear,
Would show by the bitterness of her welcoming smile,
The rage that was boiling in her heart.
But what has the mistress of the house to do with washing?
What has she to do with washing?
Oh,
You sweet innocent!
Pardon my familiarity,
But such ignorance of country life customs is very touching in one who is writing a book about them.
Oh,
I have no doubt I'm very ignorant,
Said Minora loftily.
Approaching or interfering with the mistress of the house during these days of purification,
But at their peril.
You don't really mean,
Said Minora,
That you only wash your clothes four times a year?
Yes,
I do mean it,
Replied Irei.
Well,
I think that is very disgusting,
Said Minora emphatically.
Irae raised those pretty delicate eyebrows of hers.
Then you must take care and not marry a German,
She said.
But what is the object of it?
" went on Menorah.
Why,
To clean the linen,
I suppose.
Yes,
Yes,
But why only at such long intervals?
It is an outward and visible sign of vast possessions in the shape of linen.
If you were to want to have your clothes washed every week,
As you do in England,
You would be put down as a person who only has just enough to last that length of time,
And you would be an object of general contempt.
But I should be a clean object,
Cried Minora,
And my house would not be full of accumulated dirt.
We said nothing.
There was nothing to be said.
"'It must be a happy land,
That England of yours,
' Irae remarked after a while with a sigh.
A beatific vision no doubt presenting itself to her mind of a land full of washerwomen and agile gentlemen darting at door handles.
It is a clean land at any rate,
Replied Minora.
I don't want to go and live in it,
I said,
For we were driving up to the house and a memory of fogs and umbrellas came into my mind as I looked up fondly at the house's dear old west front and I felt that what I want is to live and die just here and there never was such a happy woman as Elizabeth.
April the 18th.
I have been so busy ever since Irae and Minora left that I can hardly believe the spring is here,
And the garden hurrying on its green and flowered petticoat.
Only its petticoat as yet,
For though the Underwood is a fairyland of tender little leaves,
The trees above are still quite bare.
February was gone before I well knew that it had come.
So deeply was I engaged in making hot beds and having them sewn with petunias,
Verbenas,
And nicotina,
A phoenis.
While no less than 30 are dedicated solely to vegetables,
It having been borne in upon me lately that vegetables must be interesting things to grow,
Besides possessing solid virtues not given to flowers,
And that I might as well take the orchard and kitchen garden under my wing.
So I have rushed in with all the zeal of utter inexperience and my February evenings were spent poring over gardening books and my days in applying the freshly absorbed wisdom.
Who says that February is a dull,
Sad,
Slow month in the country?
It was of the cheerfullest,
Swiftest description here,
And its mild days enabled me to get on beautifully with the digging and manuring and filled my rooms with snowdrops.
The longer I live,
The greater is my respect and affection for manure in all its forms,
And already,
Though the year is so young,
Portion of its pin money has been spent on artificial manure The man of Wrath says he never met a young woman who spent her money that way before.
I remarked,
It must be nice to have an original wife,
And he retorted that the word original hardly described me,
And that the word eccentric was the one required.
Very well,
I suppose I am eccentric,
Since even my husband says so.
But if my eccentricities are of such a practical nature as to result later in the biggest cauliflowers and tenderest lettuce in Prussia,
Why,
Then he ought to be the first to rise up and call me blessed.
I sent to England for vegetable marrow seeds as they are not grown here and people try and make boiled cucumbers take their place.
But boiled cucumbers are nasty things and I don't see why marrows should not do here perfectly well.
These and primrose roots are the English contributions to my garden.
I brought over the roots in a tin box last time I came from England and I'm anxious to see whether they will consent to live here.
Certain it is that they don't exist in the fatherland,
So I can only conclude the winter kills them.
For surely,
If such lovely things would grow,
They never would have been overlooked.
Irae is deeply interested in the experiment.
She reads so many English books and has heard so much about primroses and they have got so mixed up in her mind with leagues and dames and disraelis that she longs to see this mysterious political flower and has made me promise to telegraph when it appears and she will come over.
But they're not going to do anything this year and I only hope those cold days did not send them off to the paradise of flowers.
I'm afraid their first impression of Germany was a chilly one.
Irei writes about once a week and inquires after the garden and the babies and announces her intention of coming back as soon as the numerous relations staying with her have left,
Which they won't do,
She wrote the other day.
Until the first frosts nip them off,
When they will disappear like belated dahlias,
Double ones of course,
For single dahlias are too charming to be compared to relations.
I have every sort of cousin and uncle and aunt here,
And here they have been ever since my husband's birthday,
Not the same ones exactly,
But I get so confused that I never know where one ends and the other begins.
Off after breakfast to look at his crops,
He says,
And I am left at their mercy.
I wish I had crops to go and look at.
I should be grateful even for one,
And would look at it from morning till night,
And quite stare it out of countenance,
Sooner than stay at home and have the truth told me by enigmatic aunts.
Do you know my Aunt Bertha?
She,
In particular,
Spends her time propounding obscure questions for my solution.
I get so tired and worried trying to guess the answers,
Which are always truths supposed to be good for me to hear.
Why do you wear your hair on your forehead?
' she asks.
And that sets me off wondering why do I wear it on my forehead and what she wants to know for or whether she does know and only wants to know if I will answer truthfully.
I am sure I don't know,
Aunt,
' I say meekly,
After puzzling over it for ever so long.
Perhaps my maid knows.
Shall I ring and ask her?
And then she informs me that I wear it so,
To hide an ugly line,
She says I have,
Down the middle of my forehead,
And that betokens a listless and discontented disposition.
Well,
If she knew,
What did she ask me for?
Whenever I'm with them,
They ask me riddles like that,
And I simply lead a dog's life.
Oh,
My dear,
Relations are like drugs,
Useful sometimes,
And even pleasant if taken in small quantities and sell them,
But dreadfully pernicious on the whole,
And the truly wise avoid them.
From Minora I have only had one communication since her departure,
In which she thanked me for her pleasant visit and said she was sending me a bottle of English Embrocation to rub on my bruises after skating,
That it was wonderful stuff and she was sure I would like it and that it cost two marks and would I send stamps.
I pondered long over this.
Was it a parting hit intended as revenge for our having laughed at each other?
Her.
Was she personally interested in the sale of ambrocation?
Or was it merely Minora's idea of a graceful return for my hospitality?
As for bruises,
Nobody who skates decently regards it as a bruise-producing exercise,
And whenever there were any,
They were all on menorah.
But she did happen to turn round once,
I remember,
Just as I was in the act of tumbling down,
For the first and only time,
And her delight was but thinly veiled by her excessive solicitude and sympathy.
I sent her the stamps,
Received the bottle,
And resolved to let her drop out of my life.
I had been a good Samaritan to her at the request of my friend,
But the best of Samaritans resents the offer of healing oil for his own use.
But why waste a thought on Minora at Easter,
The real beginning of the year in defiance of calendars?
She belongs to the winter that is past,
To the darkness that is over,
And has no part or lot in the life I shall lead for the next six months.
Oh,
I could dance and sing for joy that the spring is here.
What a resurrection of beauty there is in my garden and of brightest hope in my heart.
The whole of this radiant Easter day I have spent out of doors,
Sitting up first among the windflowers and celandines and then later walking with the babies to the Hirschwald to see what the spring had been doing there.
And the afternoon was so hot that we lay a long time on the turf,
Blinking up through the leafless branches of the silver birch at the soft,
Fat little white clouds floating motionless in the blue.
We had tea on the grass in the sun,
And when it began to grow late and the babies were in bed,
And all the little windflowers folded up for the night,
I still wandered in the green paths,
My heart full of happiest gratitude.
It makes one very humble to see oneself surrounded by such a wealth of beauty and perfection anonymously lavished,
And to think of the infinite meanness of our own grudging charities and how displeased we are if they are not promptly and properly appreciated.
I do sincerely trust that the benediction that is always awaiting me in my garden may by degrees be more deserved,
And that I may grow in grace and patience and cheerfulness,
Just like the happy flowers that I so much love.
The end.
