Arcadia Read Free Page A

remain. Your knowledge
of the picturesque obviously exceeds anything the rest of us can offer. Mr
Hodge, ignorance should be like an empty vessel waiting to be filled at the
well of truth—not a cabinet of vulgar curios. Mr Noakes—now at last it is your
turn—
    noakes: Thank you, your ladyship—
    lady croom: Your drawing is a very wonderful transformation.
I would not have recognized my own garden but for your ii ingenious book—is it
not?—look! Here is the Park as it appears to us now, and here as it might be
when Mr Noakes has done with it. Where there is the familiar pastoral
refinement of an Englishman’s garden, here is an eruption of gloomy forest and
towering crag, of ruins where there was never a house, of water dashing against
rocks where there was neither spring nor a stone I could not throw the length
of a cricket pitch. My hyacinth dell is become a haunt for hobgoblins, my
Chinese bridge, which I am assured is superior to the one at Kew, and for all I
know at Peking, is usurped by a fallen obelisk overgrown with briars—
    noakes: (Bleating) Lord Little has one very similar—
    lady croom: I cannot relieve Lord Little’s misfortunes by adding
to my own. Pray, what is this rustic hovel that presumes to superpose itself on
my gazebo?
    noakes: That is the hermitage, madam.
    lady croom: I am bewildered.
    brice: It is all irregular, Mr Noakes.
    noakes: It is, sir. Irregularity is one of the chiefest principles
of the picturesque style—
    lady croom: But Sidley Park is already a picture, and a most
amiable picture too. The slopes are green and gende. The trees are
companionably grouped at intervals that show them to advantage. The rill is a
serpentine ribbon unwound from the lake peaceably contained by meadows on which
the right amount of sheep are tastefully arranged—in short, it is nature as God
intended, and I can say with the painter, ‘Et in Arcadia egoV ‘Here I am
in Arcadia,’ Thomasina.
    Thomasina: Yes, mama, if you would have it so.
    lady croom: Is she correcting my taste or my translation?
    Thomasina: Neither are beyond correction, mama, but it was
your geography caused the doubt.
    lady croom: Something has occurred with the girl since I saw
her last, and surely that was yesterday. How old are you this morning?
    Thomasina: Thirteen years and ten months, mama.
    lady croom: Thirteen years and ten months. She is not due to
be pert for six months at the earliest, or to have notions of taste for much
longer. Mr Hodge, I hold you accountable. Mr Noakes, back to you—
    noakes: Thank you, my—
    lady croom: You have been reading too many novels by Mrs
Radcliffe, that is my opinion. This is a garden for The Castle ofOtranto or The Mysteries of Udolpho—
    Chater: The Castle ofOtranto, my lady, is by Horace
Walpole.
    noakes: (Thrilled) Mr Walpole the gardener?!
    lady croom: Mr Chater, you are a welcome guest at Sidley
Park but while you are one, The Castle ofOtranto was written by whomsoever
I say it was, otherwise what is the point of being a guest or having one? (The
distant popping of guns heard.) Well, the guns have reached the brow—1 will
speak to his lordship on the subject, and we will see by and by— (She stands
looking out.) Ah!—your friend has got down a pigeon, Mr Hodge. (Calls
out.) Bravo, sir!
    Septimus: The pigeon, I am sure, fell to your husband or to
your son, your ladyship—my schoolfriend was never a sportsman.
    brice: (Looking out) Yes, to Augustus!—bravo, lad!
    lady croom: (Outside) Well, come along! Where are my
troops? (brice, noakes and Chater obediently follow her, Chater making
a detour to shake Septimus’s hand fervently.)
    Chater: My dear Mr Hodge!
    (Chater leaves also. The guns are heard again, a little
closer.)
    Thomasina: Pop, pop, pop ... I have grown up in the sound of
guns like the child of a siege. Pigeons and rooks in the close season, grouse
on the heights from August, and the pheasants to follow—partridge, snipe,
woodcock, and teal—pop—pop—pop, and