At Work and at Play 49
ders.^42 Mrs Wilmington is a point of contrast to Cynthia and the reading of
her and her gender in relation to fl owers which is available in the text. On an
evening walk with Robert in the chapter entitled ‘Cynthia Unveils’ she confi des
to him – ‘there is a love – I have dreamt of it – that would grow up unasked and
unforced, like a wild fl ower in a garden; unsuspected, til one day it opened a
sudden blossom’.^43 Cynthia uses the fl ower as a simile to talk of a love which is
unrestrained, which has freedom even in a garden in which nature is under some
form of control. Th at control is imposed upon nature by a human element is
suggestive, in relation to the love which the fl ower represents, of a social control
of women and of sexuality. Her comments are prompted by a courting couple
whom they encounter on their walk and who she sees to be ‘making love’. ‘It is a
hideous phrase to me’, she tells Robert. Crucially, however, this is not simply a
case of prudery on Cynthia’s part – even though her ice-like demeanour and cool
rejection of potential lovers until this point may suggest this to be so. Instead it
is ‘that it is made – manoeuvred, coaxed, urged, forced!’ to which Cynthia so
strongly objects.^44 Here, then, is a desire to break the social bonds of behaviour
and expectation which is expressed through her understanding of nature.
Th is idea is brought to fruition during a scene in which Cynthia paints en
plein air. She paints, not simply nature, but a ‘neglected garden’ of a large house
which was once on a par with the Wilmington’s home. Mrs Wilmington’s mani-
cured garden acts as a signifi cant point of contrast to the garden Cynthia has
chosen to paint and which is described as follows:
Cynthia was painting the neglected garden, with its litter of rose petals, its once trim-
shaven hedges crowned with scrubby bristles and long waving locks intermingled,
and its throng of plebeian weeds elbowing the dainty scions of horticulture, some of
which were strongly rejoicing in their new freedom, while others pined bewildered,
like canaries let loose. It was a crowded scene of various drama, the actors all dumb,
rooted things. Man had departed; the benign Mother called her children back from
their divided allegiance, and they were running back to her bountiful arms with such
disorderly haste that the weaklings were crushed in the press. Or in another aspect
one might picture her as the wild witch, her captors gone, stretching her cramped
limbs, tossing aside her irksome robe of civility, and summoning her untamed ones
to harry and lay waste the place of hated imprisonment. And over the wall the elfi n
thistledown came eagerly tumbling , heels over head, and the bramble and woodbine,
and all the host of lassooing [sic] savages, crept through every unguarded gap, and
the lurking nettles came out of their corners and ran riot over the lawn and border.^45Th ere is so much that is of importance to our understanding of Cynthia in this
scene which is conveyed through her connection to nature and to the landscape
of Tregurda. Th e house to which the garden belongs is situated ‘in the dip of the
hills by the sea’ and so once again at that borderland of fl ux and possibility.^46 Th e
text prompts us to look beyond the surface meaning here, I think, suggesting