Mr Darwin's Gardener Read Online Free

through the mouth of the bottle.
    Ah well, I handled the affairs of Eileen’s father smoothly enough. And so I have managed other matters: wills, deeds of gift, contracts of sale. If you are not capable of great good, you should at least be capable of great evil, like Charles Peace, the fiddler and inventor, burglar and murderer, who was executed in February.
    I am too old to do anything but die, all alone.
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    Ah, potpourri! The scent of dead flowers! Alice Faine moves the jar from the small table to the mantelpiece.
    In Grasse I walked in fields of roses, lavender, jasmine. Young girls with baskets picked flowers. They had to gather them at just the right moment, Mother explained. The flowers were distilled into extract and blended into perfumes, which experts sniffed at vigorously.
Voilà, Madame, the soul of a rose!
When I stepped out of the perfumery into the street, I felt dizzy. The red afterglow of the setting sun fell upon the mountains. The light tinged the outline of the grey houses and tiled roofs. And suddenly I was sad, I do not know why. I did not feel pain or sorrow, but my chest was tight and my breath short. The sensation was horrible and wondrous. I was thirteen years old and I thought that I would die, but I did not die. And I do not yearn for death, but rather for that dizziness and that longing for everything. I arrange the flowers in the vase. Chrysanthemums have a sensible scent: cold air,strong herbs. The stems are sturdy, the blooms bright. Chrysanthemums are everyday, like women who refrain from building castles in the air.
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    Robert Kenny is annoyed. After the church service, Mary starts crying before she has even taken off her hat. Where do the tears come from? Which organ produces them? I do not know, though I am a doctor. Grief and tears are quite different matters. The grief in my innards is hard as a nut. Soak it in beer or whisky or cognac, and a tear may squeeze out. But the liquid would surely be pure alcohol. Tears are seeds sown in vain; nothing will grow from them. I pay no heed to Mary’s red-rimmed looks as I pour myself a brandy. It has been two years since Eleanor’s death. Such a beautiful child, with such large eyes, such dark hair. She was so lively and quick-witted. Quite dead. Our shared grief has been divided into two: Mary cries and I drink.
    Alone, I put my feet up on the arm of the sofa.
    Where runs the limit of drinking? Round the rim of the glass.
    Once Stuart finishes his funnel, I shall be able to tip a bottle into my mouth as if it were a glass. The schoolmaster-inventor is not short of ideas. He orders sheet metal and tin and nails from Rowe. Rowe farts tacks when Wilkes fails to pay his bills.
    Jennifer, my aunt, uses onion milk and Beecham’s Pills to cure people.
What ho! Sickly people
. Patients get better if it is meant to be. I use stronger stuff, but it’s the same thing. Science medicates and nature tends.
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    The book rests on the table. Alice Faine has brought it for Lucy Wilkes to borrow. She sits in the parlour.
    But Lucy runs hither and thither between table and kitchen. She musses her hair and smooths her frock. She tilts her head, scrutinizing the place settings. She sits down, remembers something else, jumps up. Alice tries to remember which bird it is that cannot settle, not on ground or tree. Instead it has to keep flying; it even sleeps in the air. Lucy has fair skin and freckles, round blue eyes and golden hair, a full pliant figure and a soft voice. If Lucy stayed still, she would in my opinion be as beautiful as an alabaster vase. But she is brimming with restlessness, and her talk runs on, an unbroken ribbon that slithers and meanders. Going into the kitchen, she raises her voice without sounding as if she were shouting. When she returns, carrying sugar tongs, I have already forgotten where the story began; maybe with her parents and grandparents. Now she tells of Charles, Lucy and Stuart’s son. His mother