The Physic Garden (17 page)

‘No. Not at all. You’ll see for yourself. But my mother worships the ground he walks on. To be sure, she does treat him as if he were the king. Perhaps better. He doesn’t demand it, you know, but she seems to feel it’s his due.’

‘Well I wish she would stop it. It makes me nervous. I hope he likes the cape.’

I had seen her work and it was impossibly beautiful, the stitches so tiny and detailed that it was sometimes hard to distinguish them one from another with the naked eye. I have no idea how she managed it with human hands and eyes.

‘Don’t worry!’

And then he was there, coming in the door, cheerful as ever, and Jenny was suddenly shy, lurking behind me, hands folded in front of her, quite unlike her usual confident self. She was wearing a light cotton dress, very fine and pretty, her new best dress she said. I think her father had had it made for her in honour of the meeting. She wore a cream wool shawl with a narrow border of flowers down each side and a deeper border of exotic flowers and ferns woven at either end, in imitation of the fine Kashmir shawls that the ladies of fashion loved to wear, and that cost a king’s ransom when brought from India. It was said that the wool
from which these shawls were woven was so fine that you could thread one of them through a wedding ring. Jenny’s shawl, which her father had woven especially for her, was fine, but not quite as fine as that. The local weavers were setting up in competition to the Indian shawl makers. I think Jenny’s father, always a canny man where a business opportunity was concerned, was hoping that Thomas might see the shawl and make enquiries about it, but I’m afraid his attention was all focussed on Jenny and on the silk parcel containing the christening cape. As for Jenny, she seemed a creature of light and air. I was so proud of her. I thought her a princess, standing in her pale dress with her pale hair falling onto the dazzling shawl, there in our gloomy house.

‘You must be the lady who makes gardens with her needle,’ said Thomas, quite unexpectedly. Coming from anyone else, this compliment would have seemed ridiculously contrived and
overblown
, but when Thomas said things like that, you believed him. You accepted what he told you as the truth, as no less than your due. She was standing just behind me. She gave herself a shake and came forward, smiling. He took her hand.

‘I can’t wait to see it.’

She went to the table, and carefully unwrapped the garment from its enveloping silk. I held my breath, hoping that he would say the right thing. She unfolded the cape and spread it out on the silk, which she had first laid on the kitchen table. Thomas stood back to look at the garment, drew in his breath and then let it out in a contented sigh. I saw that Jenny had been holding her breath too, and now she also sighed, faintly, echoing him, satisfied that the work was as perfect as she could make it.

It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever set eyes on, and to think that it had been made by a country girl, working in her father’s cottage, was a marvel. I had never seen anything like it in my life before – but then, I never moved in those circles. Babies in my family were christened in whatever decent garments could be found for them, each handed down from the next eldest, and if the kirk was cold, which it invariably was, even in summer, they
were wrapped in a simple woollen shawl. But of course this had been made for the precious son of a gentleman.

It measured some three feet from collar to edge and consisted of a double cape in Chinese silk. It was the colour of clotted cream or new butter with a quilted edging of sky blue and it smelled sweetly of the lavender with which she had stored it to keep the moths away. The work had taken her months, and they had delayed the christening because of it, but Marion wanted the very best and Thomas had been willing to go along with her. Most wonderful of all, the cape was hand-embroidered, sprigged with numerous flowers like the flowers which Jenny grew in her garden, like the flowers which we tried to grow, but could not, in the physic garden. They were the blossoms of spring and summer, as befits a baby: pinks, rosebuds, violas, campion, all in many different colours, small but accurate, made with love.

Thomas looked from the cape to the girl who had created it and I saw Jenny glance up at him in return. ‘Is it alright?’ she asked. ‘Is it what you wanted?’

‘Is it what I wanted?’ he echoed. ‘My dear girl, it’s wonderful. Miraculous! I can’t imagine what Marion will say. I’m sure she never expected anything half as beautiful as this. I know I didn’t. William, why didn’t you tell me what a genius this lass is with her needle?’

He examined the cape in the way he touched my plant specimens, delicately and with concentration, turning it this way and that in the light, looking at the way it was stitched, praising everything from the embroidery itself to the minute stitches on the blue quilted border. He was always wholehearted when something impressed him. There were never any half measures with Thomas.

Afterwards, when the garment had been safely folded away, he went over and put his hand on Rab’s head, took his wrist, and questioned him gravely for a moment or two. He felt in his pockets and brought out a bottle of some tincture or other and told my mother to put a few drops in some fresh milk if she could get any, ale if she could not, and it would ease Rab’s aches and pains.

Only then did he sit down, drink his own ale and eat his bannock with every appearance of relish. He offered a piece to me – which I accepted, although my mother had warned me to refuse – and to Jenny, who did refuse because, as she told us afterwards, she was still so nervous that it would have choked her. Then he washed his hands in a bowl of warm water and dried them on a fine linen towel I didn’t even know we possessed, like a participant in some religious ceremony. Which for my mother, at least, it was. He shook Jenny by the hand, took up the cape in its parcel of silk and carried it carefully home. Before he left, he handed her a purse of money and when she counted it, after he had gone, she was surprised to find that there was a good deal more than the sum they had agreed upon.

‘He had no need to do that!’ she said.’ Do you think it’s a mistake?’

‘He told me himself that he intended to reward you with more than you had asked for. But I did not know by how much. This is generous indeed, but then he is a very generous man.’

She danced around the kitchen, her high spirits bubbling over, spirits that she had been restraining during his visit. She hugged herself, kissed my mother, me, wee Rab, who blushed furiously beneath his pallor. She could scarcely contain herself.

‘He liked it!’ she said. ‘He liked it, he liked it!’

‘Why wouldn’t he?’ asked my mother, stoutly. For all her admiration of the doctor, she was very fond of Jenny. ‘It’s a splendid piece of work.’

‘Do you think his wife will feel the same? Oh but what if she decides that she doesn’t like it? What will I do?’

‘Don’t be daft,’ I said. ‘How could she help but like it?’

‘I have lived with it these many months past. It always comes to me that I don’t know whether the work is good, bad or indifferent!’

‘It is a garden in silk. How could he not like it?’

She seized my hands at that and we danced a jig around the kitchen together, bumping into table and chairs, like weans. My
mother smiled while Rab sat huddled up in his blanket, watching everything that went on with feverish eyes, and clapping his hands in time to some melody in his head.

A few months after Jenny had finished the christening cape, Professor Jeffray sought me out in the garden. He normally gave the impression of being a jovial enough fellow, or at least that was the appearance he liked to cultivate, but this time he was frowning. I realised that he had deliberately chosen a day when Thomas would be otherwise occupied, a day when Thomas was, in fact, lecturing in his stead. My heart sank but I decided to put on a brave front.

He called me ‘Mr Lang’, to be sure, but he spoke with a certain edge to his voice, and very little respect. ‘Mr Lang, I have to tell you that we are growing ever more displeased with the way in which you are undertaking your duties. Or rather not undertaking, but seriously neglecting them!’

‘In what way am I neglecting my duties, sir?’ I asked.

I looked around. It was very cold. There had been a hard frost in the night which had brought the smoke down, so that even now it lowered over the college. You could smell the sulphur off it. But so far as I could see, the gardens were fine and tidy. My brother had been working hard, I had spent every spare moment restoring order and the under-gardeners had done their best as well, mainly because, with the onset of winter, I had been at hand to encourage them or at least bawl instructions, interspersed with a little personal abuse when more than encouragement was needed.

He gestured around expansively. ‘You must admit that you are not quite the gardener your father was.’

‘We are never the men our fathers were, sir. We can never aspire to be their equal, but we can surely hope to learn from them.’

‘And have you learned from your father, do you think?’

‘I hope so.’

‘You are much favoured by Dr Brown, I see.’

‘I think he respects my knowledge. As a gardener. Just as I respect his knowledge as a fine plantsman and botanist.’

‘Hmm.’ He pulled a long face and it struck me that he looked very like a horse. I had a disastrous desire to laugh at him. ‘He wrote a very fulsome letter in support of you,’ added the professor. ‘He seems to find you completely indispensible.’

‘Not indispensible, sir, by any means, but I like to think that I am some use to him in gathering specimens for his lectures. Specimens that – as I’m sure you must be aware – the physic garden can no longer provide.’

‘So you say.’

‘It is the plain truth, sir. The type foundry blights the physic garden. You must know that. When you yourself were delivering the botanical lectures, you must have known that there were problems with finding specimens.’

‘Ah yes. The botanical lectures. Old wives’ medicine.’ Again that sneer, an indication of disgust. He could see no use for botany whatsoever, that was clear.

‘But even Doctor Brown was forced to admit in his letter to Faculty that your behaviour had been improper in many respects.’

‘Sir?’

‘Those were his very words, were they not? “I am afraid that his behaviour has been improper in many respects.” That was what he said. And I’m afraid Faculty were less than impressed with your behaviour.’

‘But I believe he also intimated that I might be able to work more effectively if I were better paid for what I do.’

‘We would all do that, I’m sure, Mr Lang.’

‘What would you have me do?’ I could feel the rage rising in me. Somewhere inside me, at that time, was a hot-headed young man, but even then, his fires had almost been quenched by poverty, ill health and hard work. He is still there, buried beneath the weight of years and wisdom. I wanted to turn on my heel and leave the professor standing, but it would have been unthinkable, so I stayed where I was and hated myself for my cowardice. I did not bow my head, however, but gazed steadily at him, until he dropped his eyes to the turf beneath our feet.

‘I would have you do exactly what the college is paying you to do!’ he exclaimed. ‘No more and no less. The gardens have been far from satisfactory this year past. And yet when first you were appointed, you spent so very much money on trees. I would never have permitted it, but others were swayed by Brown’s eloquence. I would have thought that we might at least see the fruits of all that expenditure by now.’

‘Sir, may I be allowed to explain?’

‘Please do.’

‘I thought, well we both thought, Doctor Brown and I, that if the garden was sick, which it was and is yet, the answer might be trees. We thought that if we planted trees, it might help to purify the air somewhat. We agreed upon such a course of action and Faculty seemed to see some sense in it.’

‘Purify the air?’ he scoffed. ‘And tell me, Mr Lang, what would you know of such things?’

‘I consulted with Doctor Brown. That was why. Because I did not know of such things, but he advised me. He fancied that the trees might breathe as we breathe and help to cleanse the filthy air in some way.’

‘What nonsense is this? Trees are not people!’

‘No, sir, they are not. But they are influenced in much the same way by the air that surrounds them.’

‘Exactly. Which is why they are yellowing and dying are they not? A waste of good resources as usual. And some of them seem to be damaged beyond saving.’

‘At least some of that is down to the young gentlemen.’

I couldn’t help but say it, couldn’t help but voice some of the anger I felt.

‘How so?’

‘They maraud about the gardens by night, breaking down trees and setting fires beneath them and God knows what else, in their drunken celebrations.’

‘Then you should find some way to curb them. If you do not attempt to curb their high spirits, what else can you expect?’

‘I? Curb their spirits?’ I must have stared at him in
open-mouthed
amazement for he had the grace to look away again. ‘Sir, they are very young, they are away from home and there seem to be few who will supervise them or even attempt to correct them. How can I tell them how to behave? If I do, they insult me, call me a common gardener, threaten me with dismissal. But they are responsible for a vast amount of damage and I will not be blamed for behaviour that I can do nothing whatsoever to address.’

He had to admit the truth of it. He could be a fair man when he chose, and I saw him nod, briefly. ‘There is something in what you say, and I will raise the matter with Faculty, Mr Lang. But all the same, I see that you yourself often leave the young gardeners, your brother included, all unsupervised, while you go stravaiging across country hunting for plants for Doctor Brown. And it will not do, I tell you. We are paying you to be here, and here you must stay and work, or suffer the consequences!’

I said nothing. If I had spoken at that moment there would have been even more harsh words between us and I could not afford to antagonise him further. He glared at me and then walked off, gathering his gown about him. He had said his piece and now he was leaving me to stew in the indignant juices raised by his words.

Later on, I told Thomas about the encounter. ‘Good God,’ he said. ‘Are they at this again? What have you ever done to Jeffray that he should take against you like this?’

‘I rather think that he dislikes me because you are so friendly with me and he considers it scandalous that a lowly gardener should form any kind of friendship with a doctor of medicine.’

‘You’re probably right. Not that you are lowly, but that our friendship scandalises him. But all the same, this could be serious for you, you know. You might write to them. Setting matters before them as they really are. I’ll help you if you like.’

‘Well, I’ll have need of help, for sure, so perhaps you could tell me what to say, since I’m so unlearned.’

‘William, I don’t mean to insult you, but only to offer you whatever help I can in this matter.’

‘Man, you’re gentry and I’m no and never will be!’

But when I had calmed down, I took Thomas’s advice and wrote a detailed letter to Faculty, stating my side of the case, not allowing the facts to be manipulated by the likes of Professor Jeffray. Once more, I can quote from the letter in full, because like so many things that I thought were gone forever, Thomas had written it all down in his commonplace book, copying the letter out in a fair hand, in among his expenses, his outgoings, his bills of sale, making a note of where and when it was written, who wrote it and how he had helped me.

I am reading my own words, which were half his words as well as mine, and I can picture us sitting together at his library table, labouring over the task. He told me I had a fine, neat hand, better and more legible than his own. The dominie had at least drummed that into me. I baulked at all that I had to say, at how much it was necessary for me to crawl before them, but Thomas encouraged me, not – he told me – because he agreed with them, but because it was necessary to ‘keep them sweet’.

‘Sometimes the ends justify the means. This is one such time.’

Gentlemen, I wrote, I have thought it necessary to lay before you a fair statement of facts respecting my conduct since my appointment
as gardener to the University immediately upon my father’s decease. Gentlemen, when my father was appointed Gardener it was then observed by several members of Faculty, that the wages allowed were not sufficient for supporting himself and his family and therefore they granted him the liberty of occupying his vacant time in that way he thought best for the advantage of his family.

The struggles my father had are well known; his salary being small and having an inclination for educating his children, he found himself in circumstances somewhat straitened, so that he was not able to make any provision for his wife and family. At the age of eighteen I was left the guardian and protector of a mother and six other children, seven until the death of my youngest sister, the sole provision for them being the salary you allowed me.

This was not strictly true of course. Bessie was already a young woman when my father died, but all the same, the rest were too young to be of any help, and Thomas said that it might be prudent to stretch the truth a little.

During the summer, when the botanical lectures are going on, the garden furnishes very few specimens. It is therefore required of me to collect elsewhere whatever plants may be necessary for carrying forward the lectures, for which purpose I have to traverse the country in search of plants; and that, Gentlemen, almost every day during the course.

A great part of my time is occupied in this manner. And
often-times
, after I have travelled two or three miles from town, I have been disappointed in finding the individual plants wanted and must again set out to some other quarter to find them. As the number of students last season was upwards of thirty, it became necessary for me to provide more than thirty specimens of each individual plant. And as several hundred Genera and Species were examined last season, a great proportion of my time must be occupied in this manner. For the truth of the above statement I beg leave to refer you to Dr Brown.

We had got so far with the letter when I said, ‘What about the conduct of the scholars?’

He pursed his lips. ‘Do you think you should mention it?’

‘They are half my trouble!’

‘But it may not go down well with Faculty. The scholars are their bread and butter, for all that they sometimes wish them gone to the devil.’

‘I care not for their bread and butter. But I do care for justice, and I am determined to point out that the scholars do great damage to the plants.’

‘Well, if you must, you must,’ he agreed.

And gentlemen, I continued, During the winter season, when the students are permitted to amuse themselves in the College Garden, it really becomes very difficult to keep them from doing mischief of one kind or another. Which tends much to hurt the appearance of the Gardens. I have brought this matter to the attention of Professor Jeffray himself and he agreed that I cannot be held responsible for the damage.

However, Gentlemen, I shall, so far as I am able, endeavour to do all which my station may require. I am, Gentlemen your most Obedient and Humble servant, William Lang.

Thomas read what I had drafted, corrected and added to it, trying to achieve something that looked as though it might be wholly written by me. We were in his library with, as far as I remember, Jenny working at her sewing beside the fire. I have a memory of her sitting quietly there, listening to us wrangling gently about the text of the letter and sometimes humming some old melody under her breath. I have a memory too of being happy, in spite of the precariousness of my position in the college. Jenny was there because Thomas and Marion had engaged her to do some more needlework for them, an ornate waistcoat for Thomas and a sprigged gown for Marion. She was spending some hours each week in their house now and I think they were paying her well. When I could find the time, I would accompany her, walking the miles home with her and stealing a kiss or two on the doorstep. Her father would bring her and collect her when he could, but sometimes, when the weather was particularly dismal,
Thomas would send her home in his own carriage. Winter was fast approaching and the days were growing shorter.

‘Do you know, I think I have a solution to all our troubles,’ said Thomas, suddenly, looking up from where he was scratching away at my somewhat blotted original, erasing a word here and there, adding a suitably penitent phrase.

‘What’s that?’

‘I think,’ he said, glancing across at Jenny, ‘That maybe we should have Jenny here stitch flowers for specimens for the students. Hers are so lifelike and real that I’m sure none of them could tell the difference and then we could use them all over again next season!’

Jenny looked up at him and smiled, white teeth, rosy lips and cheeks. I watched her hair, gleaming in the firelight and I remember noticing, momentarily, that she was changed in some subtle way. The only way I can describe it is to say that there was a gloss about her. She seemed burnished, shining with cleanliness, her dress neat, her shawl pulled about her white arms, her fingers no longer the fingers of somebody who worked in the garden but neat and nimble and – apart from the nails, which were still a wee thing broken – they looked like the hands of a lady. I noticed all this and was glad of it. They were easy on her in that household and she was thriving there.