“No. A large one. Quite a large one. Don’t you see how exciting it is becoming?”
“If you are excited already you don’t need much champagne,” argued her husband.
Nevertheless he strolled down to the leading wine-shop after lunch and returned with his purchase modestly draped in the light summer overcoat that he carried on his arm. Elsie Bellmark, who had quite abandoned her previous unconcern, in the conviction that “something was going to happen,” spent the longest afternoon that she could remember, and even Bellmark, in spite of his continual adjurations to her to “look at the matter logically,” smoked five cigarettes in place of his usual Saturday afternoon pipe and neglected to do any gardening.
At exactly six-forty-five a motor car was heard approaching. Elsie made a desperate rally to become the self-possessed hostess again. Bellmark was favourably impressed by such marked punctuality. Then a Regent Street delivery van bowled past their window and Elsie almost wept.
The suspense was not long, however. Less than five minutes later another vehicle raised the dust of the quiet suburban road, and this time a private car stopped at their gate.
“Can you see any policemen inside?” whispered Elsie.
Parkinson got down and opening the door took out a small tree which he carried up to the porch and there deposited. Carrados followed.
“At all events there isn’t much wrong,” said Bellmark. “He’s smiling all the time.”
“No, it isn’t really a smile,” explained Elsie; “it’s his normal expression.”
She went out into the hall just as the front door was opened.
“It is the ‘Scarlet-fruited thorn’ of North America,” Bellmark heard the visitor remarking. “Both the flowers and the berries are wonderfully good. Do you think that you would permit me to choose the spot for it, Mrs Bellmark?”
Bellmark joined them in the hall and was introduced.
“We mustn’t waste any time,” he suggested. “There is very little light left.”
“True,” agreed Carrados. “And Coccinea requires deep digging.”
They walked through the house, and turning to the right passed into the region of the vegetable garden. Carrados and Elsie led the way, the blind man carrying the tree, while Bellmark went to his outhouse for the required tools.
“We will direct our operations from here,” said Carrados, when they were half-way along the walk. “You told me of a thin iron pipe that you had traced to somewhere in the middle of the garden. We must locate the end of it exactly.”
“My rosary!” sighed Elsie, with premonition of disaster, when she had determined the spot as exactly as she could. “Oh, Mr Carrados!”
“I am sorry, but it might be worse,” said Carrados inflexibly. “We only require to find the elbow-joint. Mr Bellmark will investigate with as little disturbance as possible.”
For five minutes Bellmark made trials with a pointed iron. Then he cleared away the soil of a small circle and at about a foot deep exposed a broken inch pipe.
“The fountain,” announced Carrados, when he had examined it. “You have the compass, Mr Bellmark?”
“Rather a small one,” admitted Bellmark.
“Never mind, you are a mathematician. I want you to strike a line due east.”
The reel and cord came into play and an adjustment was finally made from the broken pipe to a position across the vegetable garden.
“Now a point nine yards, nine feet and nine inches along it.”
“My onion bed!” cried Elsie tragically.
“Yes; it is really serious this time,” agreed Carrados. “I want a hole a yard across, digging here. May we proceed?”
Elsie remembered the words of her uncle’s letter—or what she imagined to be his letter—and possibly the preamble of selecting the spot had impressed her.
“Yes, I suppose so. Unless,” she added hopefully, “the turnip bed will do instead? They are not sown yet.”
“I am afraid that nowhere else in the garden will do,” replied Carrados.
Bellmark delineated the space and began to dig. After clearing to about a foot deep he paused.
“About deep enough, Mr Carrados?” he inquired.
“Oh, dear no,” replied the blind man.
“I am two feet down,” presently reported the digger.
“Deeper!” was the uncompromising response.
Another six inches were added and Bellmark stopped to rest.
“A little more and it won’t matter which way up we plant Coccinea,” he remarked.
“That is the depth we are aiming for,” replied Carrados.
Elsie and her husband exchanged glances. Then Bellmark drove his spade through another layer of earth.
“Three feet,” he announced, when he had cleared it.
Carrados advanced to the very edge of the opening.
“I think that if you would loosen another six inches with the fork we might consider the ground prepared,” he decided.
Bellmark changed his tools and began to break up the soil. Presently the steel prongs grated on some obstruction.
“Gently,” directed the blind watcher. “I think you will find a half-pound cocoa tin at the end of your fork.”
“Well, how on earth you spotted that——!” was wrung from Bellmark admiringly, as he cleared away the encrusting earth. “But I believe you are about right.” He threw up the object to his wife, who was risking a catastrophe in her eagerness to miss no detail. “Anything in it besides soil, Elsie?”
“She cannot open it yet,” remarked Carrados. “It is soldered down.”
“Oh, I say,” protested Bellmark.
“It is perfectly correct, Roy. The lid is soldered on.”
They looked at each other in varying degrees of wonder and speculation. Only Carrados seemed quite untouched.
“Now we may as well replace the earth,” he remarked.
“Fill it all up again?” asked Bellmark.
“Yes; we have provided a thoroughly disintegrated subsoil. That is the great thing. A depth of six inches is sufficient merely for the roots.”
There was only one remark passed during the operation.
