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CHAPTER IX
The spring was come; it was late, but it therefore burst out more rapidly and
more exhilaratingly than usual. Ottilie now found in the garden the fruits of her
carefulness. Everything shot up and came out in leaf and flower at its proper
time. A number of plants which she had been training up under glass frames and
in hotbeds, now burst forward at once to meet, at last, the advances of nature;
and whatever there was to do, and to take care of, it did not remain the mere
labor of hope which it had been, but brought its reward in immediate and
substantial enjoyment.
There was many a chasm, however, among the finest shoots produced by
Luciana’s wild ways, for which she had to console the gardener, and the
symmetry of many a leafy coronet was destroyed. She tried to encourage him to
hope that it would all be soon restored again, but he had too deep a feeling, and
too pure an idea of the nature of his business, for such grounds of comfort to be
of much service to him. Little as the gardener allowed himself to have his
attention dissipated by other tastes and inclinations, he could the less bear to
have the peaceful course interrupted which the plant follows toward its enduring
or its transient perfection. A plant is like a self-willed man, out of whom we can
obtain all which we desire, if we will only treat him his own way. A calm eye, a
silent method, in all seasons of the year, and at every hour, to do exactly what
has then to be done, is required of no one perhaps more than of a gardener.
These qualities the good man possessed in an eminent degree, and it was on that
account that Ottilie liked so well to work with him; but for some time past he
had not found himself able to exercise his peculiar talent with any pleasure to
himself. Whatever concerned the fruit-gardening or kitchen-gardening, as well
as whatever had in time past been required in the ornamental gardens, he
understood perfectly. One man succeeds in one thing, another in another; he
succeeded in these. In his management of the orangery, of the bulbous flowers,
in budding shoots and growing cuttings from the carnations and auriculas, he
might challenge nature herself. But the new ornamental shrubs and fashionable
flowers remained in a measure strange to him. He had a kind of shyness of the
endless field of botany, which had been lately opening itself, and the strange
names humming about his ears made him cross and ill-tempered. The orders for
flowers which had been made by his lord and lady in the course of the past year,
he considered so much useless waste and extravagance — all the more, as he
saw many valuable plants disappear, and as he had ceased to stand on the best
possible terms with the nursery gardeners, who, he fancied, had not been serving
him honestly.
Consequently, after a number of attempts, he had formed a sort of a plan, in
which Ottilie encouraged him the more readily because its first essential
condition was the return of Edward, whose absence in this, as in many other
matters, every day had to be felt more and more seriously.
Now that the plants were ever striking new roots, and putting out their shoots,
Ottilie felt herself even more fettered to this spot. It was just a year since she had
come there as a stranger, as a mere insignificant creature. How much had she not
gained for herself since that time! but, alas! how much had she not also since
that time lost again! Never had she been so rich, and never so poor. The feelings
of her loss and of her gain alternated momentarily one with another, chasing
each other through her heart; and she could find no other means to help herself,
except always to set to work again at what lay nearest to her, with such interest
and eagerness as she could command.
That everything which she knew to be dear to Edward received especial care
from her may be supposed. And why should she not hope that he himself would
now soon come back again; and that, when present, he would show himself
grateful for all the care and pains which she had taken for him in his absence?
But there was also a far different employment which she took upon herself in
his service; she had undertaken the principal charge of the child, whose
immediate attendant it was all the easier for her to be, as they had determined not
to put it into the hands of a nurse, but to bring it up themselves by hand with
milk and water. In the beautiful season it was much out of doors, enjoying the
free air, and Ottilie liked best to take it out herself, to carry the unconscious
sleeping infant among the flowers and blossoms which should one day smile so
brightly on its childhood — among the young shrubs and plants, which, by their
youth, seemed designed to grow up with the young lord to their after-stature.
When she looked about her, she did not hide from herself to what a high position
that child was born: far and wide, wherever the eye could see, all would one day
belong to him. How desirable, how necessary it must therefore be, that it should
grow up under the eyes of its father and its mother, and renew and strengthen the
union between them!
Ottilie saw all this so clearly that she represented it to herself as conclusively
decided, and for herself, as concerned with it, she never felt at all. Under this fair
heaven, by this bright sunshine, at once it became clear to her, that her love if it
would perfect itself, must become altogether unselfish; and there were many
moments in which she believed it was an elevation which she had already
attained. She only desired the well-being of her friend. She fancied herself able
to resign him, and never to see him any more, if she could only know that he was
happy. The one only determination which she formed for herself was never to
belong to another.
They had taken care that the autumn should be no less brilliant than the
spring. Sun-flowers were there, and all the other plants which are never tired of
blossoming in autumn, and continue boldly on into the cold; asters especially
were sown in the greatest abundance, and scattered about in all directions to
form a starry heaven upon the earth.
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