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Updated: May 31, 2025
One could not pass it by and do nothing. "What is your name?" she asked "Kedgers, miss. I've only been here about a twelve-month. I was took on because I'm getting on in years an' can't ask much wage." "Can you spare time to take me through the gardens and show me things?" Yes, he could do it. In truth, he privately welcomed an opportunity offering a prospect of excitement so novel.
And now such inspiriting events as were everyday happenings in lucky places like Westerbridge and Wratcham and Yangford, showed signs of being about to occur in Stornham itself. To begin with, even before the journey to London, Kedgers had made two or three visits to The Clock, and had been in a communicative mood.
Kedgers, yearning to stir the earth about the roots of blooming things, and doomed to broccoli and cabbage, had spent his years unfed. No thing is a small thing. Kedgers, with the earth under his broad finger nails, and his half apologetic laugh, being the centre of his own world, was as large as Mount Dunstan, who stood thwarted in the centre of his.
The once neglected lawns had already been mown and rolled, clipped and trimmed, until they spread before the eye huge measures of green velvet; even the beds girdling and adorning them were brilliant with flowers. "Kedgers!" said Betty, waving her hand.
There were a few small coloured prints, and a framed photograph or so on the walls, and on the table was a Bible, and a brown earthenware teapot, and a plate. "Tom Wood's wife, that's neighbour next door to me," she said, "gave me a pinch o' tea an' I've just been 'avin it. Tom Woods, miss, 'as just been took on by Muster Kedgers as one of the new under gardeners at the Court."
"That was bad for you, if you had a wife and children," Miss Vanderpoel said. "Eight of us to feed," Kedgers answered. "A man with that on him can't wait, miss. I had to take the first place I could get. It wasn't a good one poor parsonage with a big family an' not room on the place for the vegetables they wanted. Cabbages, an' potatoes, an' beans, an' broccoli. No time nor ground for flowers.
But yes there was something a bit wrong somehow. Now and then she would stop and stand still for a moment, and suddenly it struck Kedgers that she looked as if she were listening. "Did you think you heard something, miss?" he asked her once when she paused and wore this look. "No," she answered, "no."
When they strolled out to look at the gardens he found talk with her no less a stimulating thing. She told her story of Kedgers, and showed the chosen spot where thickets of lilies were to bloom, with the giants lifting white archangel trumpets above them in the centre. "He can be trusted," she said. "I feel sure he can be trusted. He loves them.
Something akin to her feeling of affection for the nice, long-legged Westerner she had seen rambling in Bond Street touched Betty again. The Delkoff was the centre of G. Selden's world as the flowers were of Kedgers', as the "little 'ome" was of Mrs. Welden's. "Were you going to try to sell ME a typewriter?" she asked.
"Some of this is broken and crumbled away," said Kedgers, picking up a piece to show it to her. "Perhaps old brick could be bought somewhere," replied the young lady speculatively. "One ought to be able to buy old brick in England, if one is willing to pay for it." Kedgers scratched his head and gazed at her in respectful wonder which was almost trouble.
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