He decided to commence with the Botanical Gardens, where he had already
made so many studies, and chose the little artificial pond, sprinkled
now with an autumn shower of red and yellow leaves, for though the
gardeners longed to sweep them off, they could not reach them with their
brooms. The rest of the gardens they swept bare enough, removing every
morning Nature's rain of leaves; piling them in heaps, whence from
slow fires rose the sweet, acrid smoke that, like the cuckoo's note for
spring, the scent of lime trees for the summer, is the true emblem of
the fall. The gardeners' tidy souls could not abide the gold and green
and russet pattern on the grass. The gravel paths must lie unstained,
ordered, methodical, without knowledge of the realities of life, nor of
that slow and beautiful decay which flings crowns underfoot to star the
earth with fallen glories, whence, as the cycle rolls, will leap again
wild spring.
Thus each leaf that fell was marked from the moment when it fluttered a
good-bye and dropped, slow turning, from its twig.
But on that little pond the leaves floated in peace, and praised Heaven
with their hues, the sunlight haunting over them.
And so young Jolyon found them.
Coming there one morning in the middle of October, he was disconcerted
to find a bench about twenty paces from his stand occupied, for he had a
proper horror of anyone seeing him at work.
A lady in a velvet jacket was sitting there, with her eyes fixed on the
ground. A flowering laurel, however, stood between, and, taking shelter
behind this, young Jolyon prepared his easel.
His preparations were leisurely; he caught, as every true artist should,
at anything that might delay for a moment the effort of his work, and he
found himself looking furtively at this unknown dame.
Like his father before him, he had an eye for a face. This face was
charming!
He saw a rounded chin nestling in a cream ruffle, a delicate face with
large dark eyes and soft lips. A black 'picture' hat concealed the hair;
her figure was lightly poised against the back of the bench, her knees
were crossed; the tip of a patent-leather shoe emerged beneath her
skirt. There was something, indeed, inexpressibly dainty about the
person of this lady, but young Jolyon's attention was chiefly riveted by
the look on her face, which reminded him of his wife. It was as though
its owner had come into contact with forces too strong for her. It
troubled him, arousing vague feelings of attraction and chivalry. Who
was she? And what doing there, alone?