The Diary of a Goose Girl | Page 2

work in them,
there is such a riotous profusion of colour and bloom. To add to the
effect, there are always pots of flowers hanging from the trees, blue
flax and yellow myrtle; and cages of Java sparrows and canaries
singing joyously, as well they may in such a paradise.
{The houses are set about the Green: p5.jpg}
The shops are idyllic, too, as if Nature had seized even the man of trade
and made him subservient to her designs. The general draper's, where I
fitted myself out for a day or two quite easily, is set back in a tangle of
poppies and sweet peas, Madonna lilies and Canterbury bells. The shop
itself has a gay awning, and what do you think the draper has
suspended from it, just as a picturesque suggestion to the passer-by?
Suggestion I call it, because I should blush to use the word
advertisement in describing anything so dainty and decorative. Well,
then, garlands of shoes, if you please! Baby bootlets of bronze; tiny
ankle-ties in yellow, blue, and scarlet kid; glossy patent-leather pumps
shining in the sun, with festoons of slippers at the corners, flowery
slippers in imitation Berlin wool-work. If you make this picture in your
mind's-eye, just add a window above the awning, and over the fringe of
marigolds in the window-box put the draper's wife dancing a
rosy-cheeked baby. Alas! my words are only black and white, I fear,
and this picture needs a palette drenched in primary colours.
Along the street, a short distance, is the old watchmaker's. Set in the
hedge at the gate is a glass case with Multum in Parvo painted on the
woodwork. Within, a little stand of trinkets revolves slowly; as slowly,
I imagine, as the current of business in that quiet street. The house
stands a trifle back and is covered thickly with ivy, while over the

entrance-door of the shop is a great round clock set in a green frame of
clustering vine. The hands pointed to one when I passed the
watchmaker's garden with its thicket of fragrant lavender and its
murmuring bees; so I went in to the sign of the "Strong i' the Arm" for
some cold luncheon, determining to patronise "The Running Footman"
at the very next opportunity. Neither of these inns is starred by
Baedeker, and this fact adds the last touch of enchantment to the
picture.
The landlady at the "Strong i' the Arm" stabbed me in the heart by
telling me that there were no apartments to let in the village, and that
she had no private sitting-room in the inn; but she speedily healed the
wound by saying that I might be accommodated at one of the
farm-houses in the vicinity. Did I object to a farm-'ouse? Then she
could cheerfully recommend the Evan's farm, only 'alf a mile away.
She 'ad understood from Miss Phoebe Evan, who sold her poultry, that
they would take one lady lodger if she didn't wish much waiting upon.
In my present mood I was in search of the strenuous life, and eager to
wait, rather than to be waited upon; so I walked along the edge of the
Green, wishing that some mentally unbalanced householder would take
a sudden fancy to me and ask me to come in and lodge awhile. I
suppose these families live under their roofs of peach-blow tiles, in the
midst of their blooming gardens, for a guinea a week or thereabouts;
yet if they "undertook" me (to use their own phrase), the bill for my
humble meals and bed would be at least double that. I don't know that I
blame them; one should have proper compensation for admitting a
world-stained lodger into such an Eden.
When I was searching for rooms a week ago, I chanced upon a pretty
cottage where the woman had sometimes let apartments. She showed
me the premises and asked me if I would mind taking my meals in her
own dining- room, where I could be served privately at certain hours:
and, since she had but the one sitting-room, would I allow her to go on
using it occasionally? also, if I had no special preference, would I take
the second-sized bedroom and leave her in possession of the largest one,
which permitted her to have the baby's crib by her bedside? She

thought I should be quite as comfortable, and it was her opinion that in
making arrangements with lodgers, it was a good plan not to "bryke up
the 'ome any more than was necessary."
"Bryke up the 'ome!" That is seemingly the malignant purpose with
which I entered Barbury Green.
CHAPTER II
July 4th.
Enter the family of Thornycroft Farm, of which I am already a member
in good and regular standing.
I introduce Mrs.