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“Gradually she became aware of the moon daisies and the scent of the lime
flowers that were just beginning to blossom. Today’s sunshine, after rain in the
night, was bringing it out. She turned round and looked up at the bunches of
pale green, not unlike her vine flowers. The scent too was not unlike though the
scent of the vine flowers was delicate and this was strong and powerful as the
vibrating hum of the bees who were gathering the honey. The sunshine, striking
down in rods of light through the ceiling of green leaves, was gold as that
honey. There was goodness here, in scent and sound and splendour of light, and
if it gave no explanation of man’s tragedy it gave reassurance."

from The Scent of Water
by Elizabeth Goudge
(p.144)

Marmaduke

"Maria, in the kitchen, once more stood and gazed. The kitchen was glorious, flagged with great stone flags scrubbed to the whiteness of snow, and nearly as big as the hall. Its ceiling was crossed by great oak beams from which hung flitches of bacon and bunches of onions and herbs. It had two open fireplaces, one for boiling stews and cooking pies, and another, with a spit, for roasting. There were two oval bread-ovens set in the thickness of the wall, and hanging from hooks all round the walls were pots and pans, so well polished that they reflected the light like mirrors. There was a large wash-tub in one corner, and against the wall an enormous oak dresser where pretty china stood in neat rows; and an oak table stood in the centre of the room. There were several doors which Maria guessed led to the larders and the dairy. The windows looked out over the stable-yard, so that the morning sun filled the room, and the whole place was merry and bright and warm and scrupulously clean. There were no chairs, but a wooden bench against the wall, and several three-legged wooden stools. One of these stools had been pulled up to the table, and standing upon it, facing Maria as she came in, was a little hunchbacked dwarf making pastry. He gave a brief nod and pointed with his rolling-pin to the bench against the wall.
‘Marmaduke Scarlet, at your service, young Mistress,’ he said in a crisp, squeaky voice, ‘Seat yourself, but do not articulate. I cannot indulge in conversation while I am engaged in the creation of a veal pie.’
Yet though his manner was abrupt he seemed well disposed towards her, for there suddenly flashed across his face a smile so broad that the ends of it seemed to run into his ears, and his small round sparkling black eyes twinkled at her very pleasantly.
….
[H]e was … a delight to the eye because of the sparkling cleanliness of his person and the brightness of his clothes. Upon his head he wore a scarlet skull-cap. His coat and breeches were heather-coloured, and were worn with an emerald-green waistcoat, embroidered with scarlet poppies. His worsted stockings were heather-coloured too, and his brown shoes were ornamented with shining silver buckles. He wore a snow-white apron with a bib to it, to protect his finery while he worked.
It was a delight to watch Marmaduke Scarlet making pastry, for if ever a man was a master-craftsman at his work that man was Marmaduke. He wielded his rolling-pin like a king’s scepter, and so light was his pastry that it looked more like sea-foam than dough as he flicked it over on his board."

From The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge

~the one thing~

“She went out, closing the door softly. Outside in the passage that led to the garden she stood with her hands pressed to her aching temples and tried to think what she had to do next. Robin was bathed and in bed and Zelle comforted, the chicken was in the oven and the vegetables ready, and Mrs. Wilkes was laying the table and had promised to stay and wash up, providing they were punctual in coming to supper. Mr. Weber! He was the next thing. She didn’t look forward to him very much, but she must try and take him without fear, with no before or after. When one was well the next thing flowed in so easily and naturally, but when one was tired to death it sent before it a wave of nervous apprehension. Would one be able to manage? Would one make a mess of it? Was it going to be just the last straw which would break one down completely? Engulfed in this fear, Sally had taught herself to think of the next thing as though it were the last thing. Just this one more thing and then no more. If it were the last thing, then it did not seem too hard to rally one’s forces just once more. Obliteration of the future seemed to lead to obliteration of the past too, and there could be a sense, she knew, in which this living for the moment only could be evil. It could be license, and then the destruction of past and future was a betrayal of both. But when you took the moment in your hands as selflessly as you were able, past and future were not so much destroyed as gathered into it in one perfect whole, and living for it was not destructive but creative. The moment was no longer the last thing but the one thing, and so nothing else mattered and one would not fail.

She opened the garden door and went into a world which the wind and the rain had swept and cleansed and then left to a happy loneliness. Each flower, each leaf, burning with colour in the streaming light from the west, was held in such a stillness that it seemed alone, and yet by its very loneliness a more integral part of the immensity of light. Sally stood and bathed in light and felt herself made new. The loneliness of each leaf and flower was like the loneliness of each next thing. It was all there was, and yet it was part of a whole whose before and after was the circle of eternity.”

~From The Heart of the Family, By Elizabeth Goudge

“Dressed in a clean green overall, with her hair brushed to flame, and singing snatches of a hymn tune alternately with snatches of the latest musical comedy, Sally moved about her shining kitchen getting her breakfast. The spring sun glinting on the fittings of her electric stove, lighting up the scarlet geraniums on the window sill, made her utterly happy. The smell of coffee made her feel happy too, and the smell of toast. She laid her breakfast tray daintily, and sat down to the kitchen table to eat and review the coming day. After breakfast Mrs. Smith would come, and they would start the housework, and then, while Mrs. Smith was having her eleven o’clock cup of tea, she would go to the greengrocer’s and perhaps she would meet the five children there and talk to them. They were usually there about eleven on holidays, buying lettuce for their mother, and sometimes they brought their mother’s Pekinese with them. She loved the children and she loved their Pekinese, and she wished they were hers. And then she would come back and finish the housework, have lunch, go for a walk by the river, and watch the sun on the water and hear the sea gulls crying. After that she would come home and read a while, then put on her new frock and go to Jan Carruther’s cocktail party. That would be fun. Parties were always fun. And then she would come home and bake some cakes, and after supper she would listen to the radio and go on with the sweater she was knitting for her father, then go upstairs and help Mrs. Rutherford with her patchwork quilt for a while before saying goodnight to her. She hoped that not too many people would come in to see her, thinking she was lonely. She was never lonely.”

~From Pilgrim’s Inn by Elizabeth Goudge (1948)

The picture above was taken at my Grammy's house when I visited her last weekend. She has a lovely and extremely cozy house, with the best little vignettes to take pictures of!

Springtime Rambles

"Caroline found it difficult to imagine a lovelier house than this one, or any room that she would love better than this kitchen-livingroom. It was the private property of the family, and the quests seldom came to it. There were two kitchens at The Herb of Grace, the inner one where they cooked and washed up, and this one where they lived and ate. It was a beautiful room, stone-floored with whitewashed walls. Besides the south window looking across the garden to the river, there was another looking on the stable yard, set open above the pots of geraniums on the sill, and through it came the cooing of doves. Oak beams crossed the ceiling, darkened by age to the same rich colour as the big oak table and the dresser with its willow-patterned china. There were bright rugs on the floor and gay chintz curtains at the windows. Nearly all the year round there was a log fire burning on the wide hearth, with the settle set at right angles to it. Beside the hearth the bread-oven was set in the thickness of the wall, and the spit for roasting the meat was still there, and the hook for the kettle."
~from The Heart of the Family by Elizabeth Goudge

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Thursday afternoon...had a wonderful time looking at decorating books with my dear sisters-in-law, Ana and Leah. We had the windows open, drank Darjeeling, laughed and copied things for our homemaking notebooks.

Friday...I saw my first Robins of the Spring!! One of my very favorite of all the sounds of nature is that "tweet, tweet, twitter, tweet" song that Robins sing on summer evenings. I am so glad to hear them singing again. (The picture is a little blurry because he wouldn't let me get very close with the camera. :))

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Spent Friday putting a new door in the garage of a family from church. It was much larger than the original, so we had to tear out the existing frame and cut the opening larger. It looks really nice now that it's done. :)

You can see the first little fuzzy green things coming up around the house. This is a little hollyhock leaf trying to crawl its way out of last year's leaves. It gives one hope that soon we'll be enjoying many more little plants. I saw a picture of blooming lilacs in a book this morning and it made me long for May! :)

At 'The Laurels'

'It was a big old-fashioned kitchen, stone-flagged like the hall. There was an oak dresser filled with cheap china, a large table covered with a scarlet cloth and a low, whitewashed ceiling. She saw to her relief that the original range had been replaced by a modern Rayburn that was alight and filling the kitchen with warmth. A kettle was singing on the hob and a white cloth covered one half of the table. On it was set out an exquisite Staffordshire tea-service, deep mulberry-colour with a pattern of vine leaves. One plate was filled with door-step slices of bread and butter and another supported a grocer's cake of a strange shade of yellow. There was milk and sugar and a painted tin tea-caddy. Mrs. Baker's tea? Or hers? She had left the door into the hall ajar and the smell of lilies of the valley was drifting in to her. Yet there had been none in the hall. She told herself she must be getting tired and confused. There was a window opening on to a small walled kitchen garden, beside the half-open back door, and she went to the door and looked out. There was a bed of lilies of the valley growing under the window, nearly strangled by weeds but smelling like heaven. She was tired and confused indeed, for the next thing she knew she was outside on her knees grubbing up the weeds to give the lilies light and air. And then she was picking a bunch of them.

"There now," said a voice behind her. "I'd just gone down behind the apple trees to bring in the tea towels, what I washed this morning, and just that minute you come. Would you believe it? And I've been to the front door ten times if once this last hour, to welcome you like. Had a good journey, dear?"

Mary got to her feet and found herself confronting a little woman whose head scarcely reached her shoulder. Sparse gray hair was done up in an old-fashioned bun and very bright hazel eyes twinkled in a brown wrinkled face. She wore a white apron over an electric blue cardigan and a purple skirt, and her hands were full of clean tea towels. Her smile was wise and loving and there breathed from her whole person that sense of comfort and security, spiced with severity, that in the days of Mary's childhood had characterized the best nannies. She knew in one glance at Mrs. Baker that she had met her best friend, the best she had ever had or would have.

"Yes, I had a good journey," she said, "but it seemed a long way and I'm dying for a cup of tea."

"Come along in then, miss," said Mrs. Baker. "It's all ready."'

~from The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge

"Next day the snow began to fall, large, slow flakes drifting on a light wind. The sky was leaden and the earth crouched beneath it drained of beauty. All the light and loveliness were in the snow itself, in the movement and glimmer of the flakes large as wild white roses, in the tide of whiteness flowing slowly over the dark earth, like moonlight or the surf of a soundless sea.... After [Mary] had rescued her six snowdrops from the garden she stayed indoors and gazed out of first one window and then another, watching how the whiteness outlined the church windows and the ledges of the tower, how it lay on the shoulders of her cupid in the garden and crept along the branches of the apple tree outside the parlour window. There were sounds at first, Bess barking, the early return of the next door car bringing the children home from school before the roads worsened, voices of people crossing the green, but with the approach of twilight they one by one fell away. Even the light wind dropped and no longer murmured in the chimney."
~from The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge