The Reason Why

Chapter 36

The gardens at Wrayth were famous. The natural beauty of their position

and the endless care of generations of loving mistresses had left them a

monument of what nature can be trained into by human skill. They had

also in the eighteenth century by some happy chance escaped the hand of

Capability Brown. And instead of pulling about and altering the taste of

the predecessor the successive owners had used fresh ground for their

fancies. Thus the English rose-garden and the Dutch-clipped yews of

William-and-Mary's time were as intact as the Italian parterre.

But November is not the time to judge of gardens, and Tristram wished

the sun would come out. He waited for his bride at the foot of the Adam

staircase, and, at eleven, she came down. He watched her as she put one

slender foot b