Heart's Garden

— Measure for Measure

BY Severn Flood, by the wild, careless plum tree bright with ice, by bare willow boughs and willow wands, with a ruffle of wind in them, Rose, listening. His own voice over the dipping hilltop loudly calling, ‘Hoi, Rose, you seen Brindle? Seen my poley cow?’ Her white arms round the dun cow’s neck, her red cheek rubbing the cow’s warm hide; Rose, saying, ‘Don’t you want to go, then, darling? Don’t go, then!’ Her clasp, her tremulous clasp tightening its hold. Her own voice nearer his strong, far-carrying voice: ‘You heard. Sweet Limb of Venus! Why don’t you answer me?’ ‘I wanted you nearer!’ ‘Nearer? Bold lass! Nearer?’ ‘I’m thirsty for your kiss!’ ‘Kiss!’ (Her sunlit hair. Her red lips pouting.) ‘You get no kiss from me, my dangerous jade! I with a three-months bride! What’s come to you?’ ‘Love.’ Listening no more. Shocked. Driving away Brindle. Never looking back.

Plumed hawthorns drooping below the rocky cider orchard, white now with petaled spring’s rimeless delicious snows; clouds in the blue above; under the tiled wall bees angrily humming; creeping yeasty scents of pennyroyal and tarragon, and again his own voice, his young lusty voice, traveling the bents: ‘Hey! Rose! The skep! They’re finely clustered!’ Rose! Young Rose running swiftly towards him through the grassy orchard aisles, the sweet birds singing, the linnets, the honeyed apple buds sharpening the warm air; Rose, her starched dress rustling, her unhurried deep-drawn breath, so quietly taken. Together brushing the clustered bees. Standing on thyme, together, brushing into the straw skep the hairy torpid bees, and the air so tender with thyme. She has laid her red mouth on his. It is Rose’s voice, her pleading distracted tones: ‘You must love me! You must! She need never know!’ ‘Never!’ His unrelenting voice. His wavering glance. ‘Ah!’triumphantly, ‘you ‘ll love me yet!’ Ignoring Rose. ‘Darling! Darling! Wait with me here; there’s no one about!’ ‘There’s my young wife about!’ Sitting by his wife by the lamp of night. His thoughts of Rose.

Rumboldswick Wisdom’s foal bogged for the whinnying length of a winter’s day and a blackjack frosty night in Jinny Bluett’s waterhole. The stables in the dark winter’s night. The sick foal in slings. Together under the murky rafters all golden-dusky from the threshing flail. Rose! In the moted air so bright, Rose! That light burning all night. Rose! Those stoves so wastefully burning. All night together tending the sick foal. It was impossible to save that foal — not bolus! — not bucket! What could save that foal? Rose, saying, ‘I never thought we’d get him out!’ Rose, saying, ‘I never thought we’d save him! ‘ His hands trembling, he unable to speak; Rose, saying, ‘’T is too late!’ The dead foal. Rose in tears, her soft mouth, her salt cheek, her hands so beseeching. ‘You must take me now!’ The barn’s black rafters. Rose’s face; her bared white neck; her cleft bosom. No man could stand this.

Helpless in the sun in his wheeled chair, drinking with that woman with a bishop’s face, the faithful, childless wife of fifty years, cider from a two-handled cider cup; hearing over the hedge old vagrant Rose Bickerstethy’s ancient pipings, her wind-driven, scrannel-piping notes; she, living alone, from the abandoned cottage in Wilding Copse, hawking salt fish through six villages; she, saying, ‘D’ye know George, the pork butcher to Drakes Broughton? Well, he’s my son! D’ye know Willie, the sweep, to Abbot’s Wood? Well, he’s my son! D’ye know Fred, the poacher, to Sneachell Rise? Well, he’s my son!’

By Severn Flood, by the wild, careless plum tree bright with ice, bright with blossom, he remembers the sole flowering of his heart’s garden.