The Physic Garden Read online

  ‘What’s this?’

  I squinted up at him, my face stinging, my eyes watering. It was such an extraordinary occurrence that I thought he wanted me to do something for him, that he was giving me orders of some kind. I didn’t realise at first that he was actually giving me his flask.

  ‘Drink it and see!’ he said.

  I put the flask to my numb lips and swallowed. I remember the intense shock of it to this very day. There was an explosion of peat smoke, spring water, seaweed and honeysuckle in my mouth – my first taste of a good whisky from the islands.

  He grinned at me and nodded. ‘Go on. Take another swig. It’ll put a bit of life in you. Colour in your cheeks. You look so cold, William.’

  ‘That’s because I am cold. But this is very good.’

  ‘Oh I know.’

  ‘Where does it come from?’

  ‘Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies.’ He sat down on a low wall, close beside where I was working in all the sleet, huddled his blue wool coat around him and took a swig from the flask himself. It struck me that he didn’t even wipe the bottle before he put it to his lips and that small gesture of complicity touched me.

  ‘Actually,’ he continued, ‘one of my students is island born. He comes from the Isle of Islay, out in the west, and he brings this elixir to Glasgow with him. To remind himself of home, I expect. He calls it the water of life. “Can I give you a wee sensation of the water of life, Doctor Brown?” he said to me, once. The next time he went home he brought me rather more than a sensation. Afterwards, I found out that the name of his house means the Place of the Still in his own highland tongue.’

  Thomas Brown was so free and easy with me that it was impossible to feel embarrassed with him and yet it was not an everyday occurrence for one of the professors to be sitting on a wall conversing with a gardener and sharing a drink with him. No, it was not an everyday occurrence at all.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘William. I may call you William?’

  ‘Aye. That’s my name.’ In my surprise, I think I must have spoken brusquely, but he ignored my rudeness.

  ‘And you must call me Thomas. Will you do that?’

  ‘If that’s what you wish.’

  ‘I do. I was very sorry to hear about your father. You should have sent for me when he fell ill.’

  ‘I would have, but when he came to himself he would have none of it, and we didn’t dare disobey him.’

  ‘It must have been a great shock for you and your mother.’

  ‘It was a great shock for all of us. He was a good man.’

  ‘And a fine gardener.’

  ‘Aye, he was that too.’

  He stood up briefly and held out his hand to me. I shook hands with him in return, aware that my own were very grimy, as they had been the first time we met, when I was a lad of sixteen. Once again, he didn’t appear to notice, or to mind if he did.

  Then he offered me the flask again and when I had finished, he took another pull for himself. The spirit was coursing through my blood like a spell, warming my limbs, and making my head swim. I was not at all used to strong drink. My mother wouldn’t have it in the house for any save medicinal purposes. Perhaps it was the spirit which made me suddenly so free and easy with him, so lacking in my habitual diffidence.

  ‘A drop of that every day would banish the winter for sure,’ I told him. ‘And how are things with you, sir?’ I added, feeling that some politeness was expected of me.

  ‘Things are going very well indeed,’ he said.

  I nodded. I knew all about him. The students loved him. I would hear them complaining and grumbling about this or that professor, but of Thomas Brown, after his last series of lectures, I had heard nought but good.

  ‘I think at least some of my success is down to you and your knowledge in the field,’ he continued. ‘Tell me, William, have they offered you the position of college gardener yet?’

  I was surprised that he even knew of my situation.

  ‘No. Not yet. I’ve been working as hard as I can, completing all the work that my father started, but they haven’t made up their minds yet.’

  ‘Well they should. They won’t find another man here with such knowledge.’

  ‘I’m only completing what my father began, sir.’

  ‘Maybe I can write to them on your behalf.’

  ‘Would you do that?’

  ‘Aye. I don’t see why not. Though it would be better if I persuaded Jeffray to do it instead. He has far more influence than I do. I’ll see what he says.’

  ‘Thank-you, sir.’

  ‘Don’t sir me so much. Thomas. My name is Thomas just. And that’s what you must call me. But tell me, what would you do if you had a free hand here?’

  I didn’t hesitate. ‘Plant more trees,’ I said. I stood upright and eased my aching back. The sleety rain had stopped and a blink of watery, winter sunlight was filtering into the garden. He smiled at me. He had a smile that would have raised the dead. Even, I think, Matthew Clydesdale.

  ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘A man after my own heart then?’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘A man who loves trees as much as I do.’ He swept his arm around about, encompassing the expanse of the college garden. ‘Not enough planting, Thomas. We could remedy that, between us. You and me. What would you say to placing a big order for trees? A grand new planting. Where would you go for them?’

  ‘McAslan and Austin,’ I said, without hesitation. They were nurserymen and the best in town. They knew their business. That was what my father had always said and he had been right.

  ‘Yes. I know them. My father – when he built the new house – he bought a fine selection of trees from them. And what would you buy, William?’

  ‘What would I buy? What would I not buy, given a free hand? A huge variety. New kinds of trees as well. I mean new for this garden. My father was a conventional man in many ways, as were they all, all those old gardeners. Limes, beeches, elms, poplars and thorns. He saw no further than that. They are fine trees in their way …’

  ‘But you would have it different?’

  ‘Oh yes. Those and more. I love trees. But I think I would purchase something that might grow more quickly, as well as all of those.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Flowering cherries for the springtime, maybe the guilderose as well and larches.’

  ‘Oh aye, there would have to be larches. Are you fond of larches, William?’

  ‘I love the larch and the way it moves! The way it sways and the beauty of it even in the winter. And the shapes it makes in the sky.’

  ‘It seems you are a poet when it comes to trees, William!’ He was looking at me with a hint of a smile at my enthusiasm, but I could see that he was not mocking me, although I could not read his expression. ‘And what more?’ he asked.

  ‘Weeping willows and hollies. I think we need more hollies here.’

  ‘But they are not swift growing.’

  ‘No. But the birds are glad of them in winter. And besides, they brighten the place up at a dreich time of year.’

  ‘Ah!’ he nodded, understanding. ‘And you don’t mind the birds taking shelter in the garden, William?’

  ‘No. They rid the place of so many unwanted visitors, slugs and snails and the like, that I rather think they should be encouraged. It was my father’s opinion too, although there were many who disagreed with him.’

  ‘Go on. What else? Have you anything more exotic in mind?’

  ‘Why yes. I would plant dogwood, the service tree, and the turkey oak. But there are other trees and shrubs from the Americas which I have seen in the nursery at McAslan and Austin. Trees to make your mouth water. The wayfaring tree that some call the hobblebush is so beautiful. And the sugar maple and the cockspur thorn.’

  ‘You know your trees it seems. And all their magical names.’

  ‘I know my plants too, but I love trees best of all growing things. Especially those that we know will long outlast us. I like the
idea of living things that were here for many hundreds of years before us and will be here for many hundreds of years after.’

  It has often been my thought that there is a kind of immortality in the planting of trees, and I may have had an inkling of that sort even then, although I couldn’t have put it into so many words for him on that day.

  He drew out the flask again and we took another dram, the two of us. There were three professors walking by, deep in conversation, three corbies all dressed in black, and they cast a suspicious, sideways glance at us but Thomas ignored them. Who could blame them for their curiosity? It was an uncommon sight, not just that a professor and a gardener should be speaking together on equal terms but that they should be sharing a nip of whisky from a flask. That was unheard of.

  He said, ‘There is a yew, at Fortingall near Aberfeldy. I have seen it, William, and it is – to me, at any rate – one of the great wonders of the world. It is as old, they say, as Jesus Christ himself, and it looks it too. They have propped it up, much as one must support a venerable old man. And there are limbs on it that seem more stone than bark. More petrified than living tissue. I was never so taken with anything in my life. I could only think what memories must lie buried deep within every tiny part of it, if one could only find a way of accessing them, but perhaps in doing so one would only kill the tree and that would be unthinkable.’

  ‘Aye it would.’

  ‘I should like for you to see it some day. I think you would feel the same.’

  ‘I think I would.’

  * * *

  I have never yet seen that tree, although I have seen two of them in the gardens of Kelburn Castle, down in Ayrshire, which are said to be very old. But not as ancient as the Fortingall Yew. In fact, this is the first time I have thought about it in many a long year. It occurs to me to wonder if – old and venerable as I am myself, a living fossil of times past – I might yet be able to make the journey north and view it. It would be a difficult journey to be sure, but I am still fit and well for my age, and one of my sons might be persuaded to accompany me. I think it would be a pilgrimage of sorts, but would I be doing it for myself or for Thomas? I can’t say.

  ‘How many trees do you think it would take to renew this sorry place?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘The physic garden or the whole garden?’

  ‘Oh, the whole garden, for I fear the physic garden may already be beyond redemption! Don’t you agree with me?’

  ‘It may be so. Well then, it would need some twelve dozen of trees and flowering shrubs to make a difference. So much money. But it would make a difference you know. And I think the professors would be glad to see them.’

  ‘It would gladden my heart, certainly. I’ll tell you what, William,’ he said, getting to his feet, ‘Will you make out an order for McAslan and Austin? Can you do that?’

  I thought he was asking me did I have the skill of writing again. I bridled with indignation and said, ‘Sir, of course. You know that I learned reading and writing when I was a lad. My father made sure of it. And when you give me a list of plants, do I not read it as well as any scholar?’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’ He smiled at me again. ‘And will you stop “sirring” me, man? I was not enquiring about the measure of your learning. I only meant are you brave enough to write down all that you would want to plant here, no matter what the cost?’

  ‘It would give me pleasure to imagine it, even if they deny me at the last.’

  ‘Then do it. Make an order and cost it out fully and let me have it. I’ll see if I can get Jeffray to take it to Faculty on your behalf. He owes me something, after all, for I have done him a great favour by taking the botanical lectures off his hands. And if they don’t allow all that you wish, but give you the gardener’s position instead, I’ll pay for the trees out of my own pocket. There now!’

  I think I must have stood there with plain astonishment on my face.

  He smiled at me, his face full of kindness, slipped the flask back into his pocket and went on his way, whistling a cheerful air.

  * * *

  I made out that first order, and the authorities allowed it. I made out a supplementary order in late January and again in February. They allowed all of them. God knows how Thomas managed it, but I believe it was only down to him. He was a man – as my mother put it – who could charm the birds out of the trees if he so wished.

  Over the winter I made a gravel walk from the new bridge to the Observatory House, and planted up trees throughout the college garden. I worked with a will, and the result of all this was that I took up my appointment as gardener, in my father’s place, at Candlemas of 1801, which was a great relief to all of us at home, in that we would continue to have a roof over our heads and something of the wherewithal to keep us in food and fuel.

  I still don’t know what magic Thomas worked on Faculty on that occasion. But I think that he must have enlisted Jeffray’s aid. Because Professor Jeffray was already a man of considerable influence. He liked Thomas very much but what is more to the point, he needed Thomas. Without him, he would have to return to lecturing in his loathed botany. However it was, I became college gardener and was able to go to McAslan and Austin and select my trees, although the old man there treated me like a boy still. Oh he called me Mister Lang, right enough, but you could see him thinking, ‘He isnae a patch on his faither. He’s no hauf the gairdner his faither wis. I kent his faither, and he’s no the same man at a’.’

  All the same, he must have known that my father would never have ordered the likes of the wayfaring tree from him. It is sometimes called the hobblebush, Viburnum alnifolium, with the most elegant white flowers you ever did see. We planted that and the cockspur thorn, which has glossy leaves and pretty flowers and even prettier berries. And we established the sugar maple, which I think was always my favourite, Thomas’s favourite tree too, tall and fine and beautiful, like an autumn sun shining on a chilly day.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Gathering In

  When spring came round, and when the new planting was done, Thomas again asked me if I might find the time to go out and about into the surrounding countryside and gather specimens for the students.

  ‘I know how busy you are, William,’ he told me. ‘But it would be such a favour to me, if you could oblige me in this. And there is nobody I would trust quite as much as yourself in this matter.’

  The truth was that I had no free time whatsoever for such a venture and no business to be doing it. Between the garden and the apothecary business, which was already failing, indeed which could never truly be said to have got started, I needed all the time I had for myself and my work. But I could not bring myself to deny him. He was that kind of man, so generous, so persuasive, that you wanted to please him. And besides, I think I wanted to do it for myself. There was that about it that satisfied something in me, something over and beyond the daily grind of digging and hoeing, of weeding and pruning. It was a pleasure of the mind as well as the body: to be entrusted with seeking out certain plants, to be using all my skills to find them and, once found, to preserve them for him. But he surprised me even more by his next suggestion.

  ‘Why don’t you come to my lectures?’ he asked.

  ‘How could I attend your lectures, sir? A common gardener.’

  I could not get out of the habit of calling him ‘sir’ no matter how hard I tried.

  ‘Oh, I think you’re a very uncommon gardener, William. But why not? I think you might find them interesting.’

  I could think of a dozen reasons why not, most of them to do with money or the lack of it. ‘Sir, your students must pay and I could not afford to pay you!’

  ‘Well, perhaps we could come to some arrangement. You supply me with botanical specimens and I’ll be happy to waive my lecture fees. Would that persuade you? It seems fair enough to me!’

  I told him that I would think about it and I did think about it, perhaps more than was good for me. I was so hungry for knowledge at that time and the learni
ng he offered me gleamed in my mind’s eye, enticing me like some exotic fruit.

  * * *

  That spring and summer, my mother pottered about with a small quantity of withered herbs, trying, like Whuppity Stoorie in the tale which my grand-daughter loves, to spin them into gold, but with far less success than that legendary fairy woman. Meanwhile, I would walk for miles in the sweet countryside outside the town, taking my leather bag and my squares of damp linen with me, and I would collect plants in great quantity, all that Thomas asked for and more: angelica, aromatic and tender in the spring, dog violets and windflowers, campion and ramsons. There were young nettles with many medicinal properties, not least the virtue of purifying the blood, followed by foxgloves in high summer, marching armies of them, poisonous and beautiful, although Thomas told me they had some medicinal uses. I harvested pink and white yarrow and cuttings of the sweet honeysuckle that grew, a buttery tangle in all the hedgerows. I gathered chickweed, scurvy grass, thistle and valerian, nightshade and wormwood, feverfew and sweet cicely and calendula. The names were poetry to me, an incantation on my tongue, a worship more potent than any prayer intoned by the minister in the kirk.

  Then I would bring them back and present them to Thomas. I would hand them to him as my grand-daughter brings me the treasures she finds in the garden, the chuckie stanes and feathers that she sometimes gives me, and I would bask in the enjoyment of his gratitude, much as she is certain of pleasing me, whatever she brings. And if that sounds plain daft to you, I can’t help it. One smile, one nod of his head, was enough to make my day.

  All the same, there were times when Thomas would be distracted. He would be talking to me about botanical specimens or even enquiring after my family and he would be interrupted by some passing professor or scholar with a pressing question. His gaze would slide away. ‘One minute, William,’ he would say and turn aside from me. I cannot even now tell you why I would feel so unreasonably bereft, angry even, unless it was a premonition of things to come. There was nothing in it. And yet I would be suddenly chilled, as when the sun goes behind a cloud in the middle of a warm day. Perhaps it was simply that I found our conversations so precious. Interruptions were terrible to me. I was always hanging on his words, like poor Lothian Tam on Lunardi’s balloon. And when he withdrew, I would find myself plummeting to earth. I would pick myself up, and tell him that I had better get on with the work I was being paid to do. He could see that I was not best pleased and I think it irritated him but he always contrived to leave me with a smile.