“Hattie, are you wearing your good slip? You’ll be next for a fitting after the child,” Mrs. Abbott said.
With the Masque of the Blue Garden only days away, Hattie and her mother joined Susan James and the other women of the bishop’s aid society to complete preparations. Place cards were lettered and little blue satin bows were tied for the menus and the individual nosegays that were to grace each place setting. One afternoon the bishop himself stopped by for tea with the women of the aid society to express his appreciation for their generous efforts.
Hattie attended the tea for the bishop out of curiosity, because she overheard the women talk as they curled the crepe paper flower petals with their scissors. The bishop was much younger than his predecessor and quite charming; he was amiable and smiling as he surveyed the centerpieces and other decorations; his face was animated with pleasure as his eyes moved from face to face, as if appraising each woman. Hattie watched the women of the aid society line up to kneel to kiss the bishop’s amethyst ring. The bishop’s visit was their reward, and she did not begrudge their pleasure with the handsome bishop with only a few flecks of gray in his beard.
The bishop’s cassock smelled of church incense and reminded Hattie of the Saturday religious instruction class of long ago. The bishop’s booming voice and jolly chuckle rose above the happy hum of the aid society women, who excitedly whispered to one another after they kissed the bishop’s ring. Mrs. Abbott made quick little hand motions for Hattie to join her in the line to kiss the ring. Hattie felt her face flush when her mother called out to her as the line grew shorter. She shook her head and fanned herself with a piece of paper. The bishop’s presence seemed to saturate the entire ballroom with an odd energy that left Hattie feeling light-headed, as though she might faint. She rose from her chair so suddenly her scissors slipped from her lap, and one blade stuck straight into the hardwood parquet floor. She felt she would faint if she did not reach the door; her mother followed after her into the fresh air and the ill feeling passed.
As the day of the ball drew closer, Susan frequently left Mrs. Abbott in charge of the aid society volunteers while she donned her big sunbonnet to go out to supervise the workmen to hurry the completion of the English landscape garden along the driveway. The newly created hills were bright green with new turf the workers unrolled to fit seamlessly; large azaleas and mature dogwoods were transplanted, but the new hills needed something more to give the appearance of maturity.
The bishop’s aid society volunteers were lettering the dozens of place cards when the dour face of the Scottish gardener once again popped around the door of the ballroom where the women worked at the tables. Good news, Susan said as she tied the sunbonnet under her chin. Her gardener had located two great copper beech trees at an old farm on the south shore, and now preparations were completed to move and transplant the beech trees together on the new hills.
The route of the two giant beech trees on their wagons took them through downtown Oyster Bay and necessitated workmen to temporarily take down electrical and telephone lines to allow the huge trees to pass. Hattie was embarrassed by her sister-in-law’s excess and stayed behind to letter place cards with the other women. Edward and Mr. Abbott took Indigo along to witness the spectacle of the pair of sixty-foot trees inching through downtown Oyster Bay. People lined the street to stare at the odd procession. Indigo stood on the back of the buggy to get a better view. The slow progress of the wagons loaded with the trees gave Edward time enough to set up his camera to record the event.
Indigo was shocked at the sight: wrapped in canvas and big chains on the flat wagon was a great tree lying helpless, its leaves shocked limp, followed by its companion; the stain of damp earth like dark blood seeped through the canvas. As the procession inched past, Indigo heard low creaks and groans—not sounds of the wagons but from the trees. The Scottish gardener and Susan followed along behind the wagons in a buggy.
The actual unloading and planting of the two beech trees required another two hours after they arrived. Indigo watched with Edward and Mr. Abbott as the workmen attached chains and ropes to pulleys and the horses lifted the giant trees slowly off the wagons and set them in place. Susan joined them to express her concern the trees might not recover their vigor and appearance in time for the ball, but the Scottish gardener gave her a brisk nod that seemed to reassure her.
As soon as the trees were securely planted, Susan turned her attention to the blue garden itself; she invited Edward and Indigo to join her because she needed advice. The spring and early summer had been unusually dry, and the mainstay of blue gardens, the delphiniums, had suffered considerably and replacements must be found. The blue pansies and the violas were stunted, and the salvias, in so many hues of blue, were hardly better; besides, they were so common in blue gardens.
They followed her down the path to the outbuildings behind the house and gardens. Narcissus in July? Wisteria flowers in midsummer? Here was where it was all done; Susan opened the glass door and cold air rushed refreshingly against Indigo’s face. The Scottish gardener’s cold greenhouse was chilled with blocks of ice delivered three times a week; even the intensity of the light in the glass house was controlled, with muslin shrouds to affect the length of day so the big pots of wisteria, pruned into graceful trees, would bear cascades of sky blue and pure white blossoms for the Masque of the Blue Garden. Pots of blue irises, even big boxes of blue lilacs and blue rhododendrons, would adorn the ballroom, Susan explained.
Whites were as important as blues in the moonlight; on the night of the ball, pots of white wisteria and white bougainvillea would festoon the arches and gateways; cascades of pendulous white and blue wisteria would cover the long marble loggia completely. White lilacs and white azaleas would be scattered among the blue lilacs and blue rhododendrons for drama.
But what to plant in the flower beds around the lily pool? Every year Susan anguished over her choices: blue hydrangeas, blue campanulas, blue cornflowers, blue asters, blue lupines, and pale sky blue columbines were on her list of candidates. Weeks ago, the gardeners had planted every sort of blue-flowering plant imaginable, but now Susan must decide which plants would compose this year’s blue garden.
Surely Edward would help her choose; she wanted the blue garden to hold something new and visually exciting, but something resistant to heat as well. Edward and Indigo followed Susan into the adjoining glass house that was much warmer. Here the damp earth smell enclosed them and Indigo felt a thrill when she saw big baskets of orchids hanging from the ceiling structure. This glass house was much larger than the one in Riverside.
The orchids shared the space with the bedding plants for Susan’s new English landscape garden and, of course, this year’s bedding plants for the blue garden. The glass house delphiniums, the belladonna—both grandiflorum and the Chinese—were thriving in here, but outdoors their older siblings, transplanted weeks before, showed the ravages of drought and heat. The Anchusa azurea, or blue Asian bugloss, growing next to the delphiniums was far less demanding, though its blossoms not as long lived, but they had to last only one night—the night of the ball. Pale blue spiderworts thrived on the other side of the delphiniums, but they preferred cloudy weather and were planted only in case the summer turned wet and cool.
The blue flowers of the Gentiana were wonderful but they would never last in the heat. Edward chose the blue globe thistle and the blue datura for the background, with bluegrass planted with blue Gladiolus byzantius. Jacob’s ladder and blue balloon flowers went next to the blue Carpathian bellflowers. Of course, a veronica of deep blue must be planted with the myosotis; the forget-me-not and the blue Persian cornflowers should be edged with sapphire lobelia.
In low white marble planters near the coolness of the pool’s edge, Aconitum falconeri, blue monkshood, and rare blue primulas would be complemented with blue foxglove. For dramatic effect among the blue flowers, there were drifts or scatterings of white lilies and white foxgloves, white hollyhocks, and bushes of white lavender
and white tree lupines. In the blue borders bushy white asters and phlox were planted with white artemisia and white Canterbury bells.
Susan took notes as Edward called out the flowers’ names, and Indigo examined them carefully. She wanted to remember each detail of the leaf and the stalk for all these plants and flowers so she could tell Sister Salt and Mama. She picked up seeds and saved them in scraps of paper with her nightgown and clothes in the valise so she could grow them when she went home.
The dampness steamed the glass but in the next room Indigo could see the tops of palm and banana trees. Dozens of bark fragments covered with jade green moss were planted with hanging orchids, and big pots of orchids lined the walks between the benches that held dozens of potted orchid plants. Edward stopped when he saw the two big Laelia cinnabarina, their fiery orange-red blossoms cascading from their hanging baskets. He felt unexpectedly moved by their magnificent beauty, and the sight of the blossoms overcame him with vivid memories of the fire and his accident. Although he helped collect nearly eight hundred plants, he returned from Brazil without a single specimen of the cinnabarina for himself; the storm and the salt water saw to that.
“Expensive specimens,” Susan said when she saw him pause to examine the cinnabarina.
“Yes, expensive,” Edward murmured, and wondered if these two cinnabarina were specimens he helped to collect. The humidity of the orchid room suddenly made Edward feel unwell. He looked anxiously at the glass house door.
Once they were outside the glass house, Edward stopped to look back at the workmen digging up old path stones in the ruin of the circular garden of herbs. Edward thought Susan was foolish, so he said nothing; only now had the Italian gardens reached their full maturity to reveal the vision of the architect, yet the gardens were being destroyed. His sister might transplant great trees all she wanted, but she would not see her new English gardens reach their maturity unless she lived to be quite old.
“I’m glad you spared the lemon garden,” Edward said, because he was fond of the balustrades of pale limestone with the old lemon trees in their white stone pots along the walk.
“Actually I’ve not decided,” Susan said over her shoulder as she walked up the path to the lemon garden, “but all the statuary must go. The marbles are white Carrara, but they’ve not weathered well in most instances.” Edward noticed no damage; the gardens were well protected. She glanced at the two fat cupids embracing and Edward realized she was concerned about the propriety of the nude figures now that Josephine and Anna were young ladies. The noses and facial features of the marbles naturally softened with time, but there were other prominent features on the marbles not eroded enough.
Edward pointed out the interplay of shade and sunlight and the hues of green were soothing and cool; the Italian gardens here complemented the design of the house and were refreshing havens from the heat. The careful plantings of linden and plane trees, now mature, filtered the light to a lovely, luminous green-yellow, while the darker greens of the hollies and rhododendrons were inside the cool shadows.
Susan gave an impatient wave of her hand. At the time the architect designed the house and gardens she was newly married and had few ideas about gardens. Now she found the arrangement of shrubs and trees according to their hues of green artificial and boring; the geometric topiary forms were ridiculous. She wanted a natural garden filled with color—an English landscape garden with swaths of flowers in all colors from the bright to the shade. Edward asked for a reprieve for the lemon garden.
“I want to make photographs of the statues before the workmen take them away,” he said. He could see a number of the statues had already been removed and were lying helter-skelter on the lawn and terrace. He started back to the house to get the camera, but Susan wanted to show the child the birds.
They followed a narrow flagstone path shaded by a canopy of linden trees. Up ahead, Indigo heard excited chirping and the flutter of wings, and then she saw a great many brightly colored birds of different sizes. The aviaries were as large as the glass houses and made of the same steel framework; steel mesh took the place of the panes of glass.
The cage of finches fluttered excitedly in the leaves of the big potted fig trees that shaded them. The canaries sat quietly on the perches of their aviary and watched. To hear the lovely songs of the Chinese thrushes one must be there just at dawn, Susan said; their songs were the loveliest.
“What’s that bird called?” Indigo pointed at a bright green bird the size of a dove but with a thick hooked beak, alone in an ornate cage behind the aviary of thrushes.
“Oh that’s a parrot—I bought two of them because I thought they’d be handsome in that lovely gilded cage in the conservatory among orchids, but one died and now the whole look is spoiled. One parrot alone won’t do.”
Indigo tiptoed as close as she could to the cage bars to get a better look at the green parrot. It had a band of bright red feathers across its forehead above its curved beak, and the loveliest feathers of powder blue on the top of its head. The bird was perched on one leg with its head tucked under its wing.
“The bird looks ill,” Edward said.
“It hasn’t eaten well since it lost its mate,” Susan said without looking at the bird.
“What’s its name?” Indigo asked.
“Oh I don’t bother to name the birds,” Susan said. “There are so many.”
Indigo watched the parrot open its eye from time to time to gaze at her; it seemed to know it was the subject of discussion, but Indigo thought the bird looked too sad to care what was said.
“What happened to the other parrot?” Indigo asked without taking her eyes off the bird.
“Now, Indigo, it isn’t polite to ask questions.” Edward turned to go back down the path toward the house, but Indigo didn’t move.
“An accident—it was quite unpleasant,” Susan said. “I didn’t actually see it, thank goodness. Its mate was found dead—accidentally strangled by a toy, a piece of rope in the cage.” Indigo saw no toys or ropes in the cage now, only the lone parrot on its perch. As Susan followed Edward up the path, Indigo leaned close to the bars of the cage and whispered, “Don’t be sad, green parrot. I’ll come visit you every day!”
The following morning Edward left early for a meeting in the city with Lowe & Company’s lawyer, Mr. Grabb. Hattie did not sleep well the night before and awoke before dawn from a strange dream that left her oddly tired and a bit low. She asked her mother to give her apologies to Susan and the others making party favors; Hattie felt a great sense of relief after her mother went next door. She found Indigo in the parlor looking for pictures of parrots in a book about birds.
Hattie sat back in the armchair and closed her eyes. The dream itself was almost nothing—at first she saw the bishop at the altar with her mother and Susan and the bishop’s aid society gathered around him, but then she realized this was not a church but a dimly lit room, with case after case of empty bookshelves, a library table, and chairs. An overpowering sense of loss and sadness accompanied the dream and she woke in tears. Even to recall the dream stirred a sadness in her, so she turned her attention to Indigo, who was carefully studying a color plate of the parrots. She found herself smiling at the child’s serious expression as she searched for a picture of a green parrot like Susan’s. Edward was right about the benefits of travel for the child.
Indigo wanted to know more about parrots. She asked Hattie to take her to the aviaries every day, but the green parrot ignored the child. The fruits, nuts, and seeds remained in its dish untouched. Hattie feared the parrot’s condition was deteriorating before their eyes. When they were back in the house, Hattie gently reminded Indigo the parrot was ill, and she mustn’t become too attached to it. Moments later tears ran down Indigo’s face, but when Hattie asked what was wrong, the child accused her of lying about the well-being of the monkey. Hattie promised their lawyer in Riverside would not lie; they would ask him to find Linnaeus a little friend to share his cage.
“Mr. Ye
twin will find the nicest little kitten he can and take it over at once for Linnaeus.”
Tears welled up in Indigo’s eyes; each time she thought of him, she prayed for Linnaeus to be safe until she returned; but she was careful not to think about him too long or she began to feel so lost and alone the knot in her throat wouldn’t let her breathe. But now, as she imagined a fat yellow-striped kitten leaping up the wisteria vines behind the mischievous Linnaeus, her tears dried.
“Is there a book with pictures of cats?”
“In the library,” Hattie said, and opened the door for Indigo. As she followed the child up the stairs, Hattie thought how odd her parents’ house seemed now—even her own bedroom no longer felt her own. Although she knew all the objects by heart, she no longer felt any attachment to them. Was it all the activity in preparation for the bishop’s benefit that made her anxious to be on their way to England?
Hattie recognized the startled sensation in her chest with its urgency that left her perspiring. She first felt the sensation the day her thesis adviser notified her that the committee had grave reservations about her thesis conclusion. The day she thought she might have to kiss the bishop’s ring the startled sensation surged up but disappeared as soon she reached fresh air. She worried the anxious sensation might return and incapacitate her as it had two years before.
Hattie was still feeling unwell and went to lie down, so Indigo went downstairs to the kitchen and found Lucille, who gave her a bowl of soup at the kitchen table. While she was eating, she heard Edward’s arrival from the city. Indigo could hear Mrs. Abbott’s voice clearly; “blue shoes for Indigo” brought her right out of the kitchen into the parlor.