Bluebells, backwards was the password! God I hate bloody passwords, as I ‘thumble’ with the keyboard, and managed to achieve ‘slleubeulb’. There was an immediate, terse, blue notice advising that the password was incorrect! Shit, I tediously, and deliberately retyped ‘sllebeulb’.
Ttrring and the screen dissolved into the soft pastel colours of compliance. I was in!
But what was I looking for? She had winked as she departed, advising that the site would entertain. I was looking at a site promoting springtime British garden tours – Sissinghurst, Hidcote Manor, Highgrove, even a couple on the Welsh border, Chirk and Powis Castles. I wasn’t planning a trip to Britain, this springtime or any time soon.
And why was a garden tour-site protected by a password? I started to mouse-over the names of the gardens, quickly drawn into the images of pleached and espaliered orchards, walled, colourful garden beds, delightfully romantic follies, acres of winter daffodils, timbered groves with massed, understory bluebells, ancient, clipped hedges, castellated towers, statuary, and fountains.
Believe it or not, I was being drawn further into the marvels on these pages. Two hours later, and I was actually wondering whether or not a UK trip might be doable. But my reverie was rudely interrupted. I had seen something, albeit ever so briefly! The hairs on my neck were prickling!
I moused over Sissinghurst. Yes, there, just the merest glimpse from the corner of my eye, as I moved the mouse. I turned to ask if you had seen it too, but of course, you were not there! I tried Powis, a picture of the castle’s forecourt, entwined dragons frolicking and spewing a watery welcome. Nothing, but as I shifted the mouse, there again, a flicker of movement at the bottom of the screen! This was ridiculous. I wiped my brow, and with deliberate conviction, closed the site down!
That evening, alone in the drawing room, I sipped a rather fine 2016 Silenus Merlot – an import from Langhorne Creek, that was complementing the deliciously burnt-caramelly, tart flavours of a hitherto untried Roquefort-en-biscotti. But my mind was still anxiously tossing over the imagery, that spied, tiny figure, flitting, seeming to move into my room. Insane! How could a digitally-contrived image morph off the screen?
I argued with myself for half an hour before I was back at the keyboard, my reversed bluebells falling effortlessly, and correctly into place!
The bland screen opened onto a verdant, treed meadows, a castle in the distance, massed, blue spikes waving under the trees. The picture’s central focus was a lake, with a punt, a young couple poling across the water, she, working the pole, he, idlily trailing his left hand into the water.
The punt was moving across the lake and out of the screen, into the study! I could hear laughter, snatches of conversation, even the rhythmic splosh of the poling. There was a faint, musty smell of dank-water. I looked closer and made out a bassinet on the floor of the skiff, between the couple, and I was hearing a baby’s contented gurgling. I suddenly had the conviction that they were heading for the offscreen church, for the child’s baptism?
The little figure flitted about the study, zooming around my head several times. I tried ineffectually at swatting it away. It alighted on my shoulder. My study and the gardens, the young family in the skiff, this little fairy had joined to become one! The fairy moved across playfully, and whispered into my ear “Beware the springtime fairies” and flew off!
I was now very uneasy, possibly tipsy too! It was late, and as I starting to tidy up, I noticed the cheese wrapper, Roquefort Jacinthe des Bois. There was a story on the paper, explaining an ancient nexus between bluebells and fairies, describing their sometimes evil, springtime antics in the fields near the cheesery. It finished “At your peril, never, ever, ever tinker with the fairies!”