The White Riband Part 4

Loveday felt the approval, and her heart took wings to the heaven of certain hope. Indeed, had Loveday but had the sense of what was fitting to tell the Vicar's lady, she might have attained what she wanted, but hope, like despair, ever made Loveday heady.

"What work do you want?" asked Mrs. Veale. "I should have sent you out to service long ago, but I knew your aunt needed you at home. Has she sent you?"

"No, ma'am," answered Loveday, "I came of myself. I want work I can do in my spare time, when Aunt Senath don't need me."

So far all was well; the scheme sounded fit for encouragement by the Church, ever anxious for the welfare of even her humblest children.

Mrs. Veale gave thought to her boots and knives ... no, the gardener's boy did them, and he was being prepared for confirmation and must not be unsettled. The mending ... that was done by the housemaid in her spare time, superintended by Mrs. Veale herself, and it would not be fair to the girl to leave her with idle hands for Satan's use when they could be employed instead upon sheets and stockings. The was.h.i.+ng ... the housemaid's mother came to do that, glad to do so at a reasonable price for the opportunity of seeing how her daughter prospered from week to week under such care as Mrs. Veale bestowed on all the maids whom she trained. The spring cleaning ... a girl who did not know the ways of the house would make work instead of saving it. Yet Mrs. Veale felt, as a Christian woman, that it was her duty to encourage Loveday even at the cost of her own china. She resolved to do so.

"Many people would not help you, Loveday," she said, "for it is very difficult to find work suddenly without upsetting the ways of a household, but you are my G.o.d-daughter, and so I have always taken a special interest in you. My spring-cleaning is not till May this year, as then the Vicar goes away to stay with his lords.h.i.+p, the Bishop of Exeter, and I will have you here under my own eye. You will not be of much a.s.sistance at first, but if you are willing and do as you are told you will be able to learn."

At the mention of the month of May the wings of Loveday's heart folded once more and let her heart fall like a stone, then opened in a fluttering attempt to save it.

"What--what time in May, ma'am?" she asked. Perhaps it would be the first week in that month and all would yet be well, since the Flora was held upon the eighth.

At Mrs. Veale's next words the wings moulted away, and the bare quills left Loveday's heart p.r.o.ne and defenceless.

"Not till the second week," said Mrs. Veale, "for the Vicar wishes to stay till the Flora, as we are permitting Miss Let.i.tia to dance in the procession this year, and naturally he wishes to be there. The Vicar feels that these old innocent customs must not be allowed to fall into disuse."

"Ah!" cried Loveday, "'tis no good to me!"

At this shocking speech--imagine a village girl crying out that an offer of employment from the Vicarage is of no good to her!--Mrs. Veale drew such a breath of horror that the hair of the late Canon rose in its locket.

"What on earth can you mean, Loveday Strick?"

Thus Mrs. Veale, justly outraged. But Loveday, infatuated, rushed upon her fate--the fate of expulsion from those precincts.

"Oh, ma'am, 'tis no manner of use to me unless I get work before the Flora. The Flora, ma'am" (repeating the beloved name as an invocation in time of trouble).

"'Tis this way, I must get a white satin sash come Flora Day, 'cause if I do I'm to dance along with Miss Le Pett.i.t in the procession.

She's promised me that I should, and indeed I'll die if I don't. I will indeed. I've fixed my soul on it. I've got the gown and the stockings and the shoes, and all I want is the white riband, and I must someways make enough money to buy it come Flora Day. Oh, Mrs. Veale, ma'am, if you'll let me scrub and scour for you I'll do it on my knees so as only I can dance with her in the Flora."

During this speech Mrs. Veale had risen to the full height and width of the black silk, feeling that thus only could she cope adequately with such a flood of ill-regulated and unseemly pa.s.sions. She felt deeply wounded to think that any girl of her teaching should so betray it as this one did in every undisciplined word. She had not felt such a bitter stab of disappointment since a trusted and loved old nurse of the family had been found drinking the Vicar's port.

"Loveday Strick," she said, "you are forgetting yourself."

This was not exact, for Loveday had forgotten Mrs. Veale, but the rebuke drenched the impetuous girl like a cold wave. She stood defenceless.

"I have not comprehended half this mad tale of yours," continued Mrs.

Veale, "but I gather you have the presumption to say that Miss Le Pett.i.t--_Miss Le Pett.i.t_--has said you may dance with her at the Flora. Perhaps a young lady in her exalted position, and of what I believe are her modernising tendencies, may have formed such a project, but you should have known better than to have presumed on such an unsuitable condescension. As to a white satin sash, I can imagine nothing more unfitted for a girl in your unfortunate position, of which I am very sorry to be obliged to remind you. I had always hoped you would never forget it."

"Ma'am ... you don't understand ..." began Loveday.

"That is quite enough, Loveday. Let me hear no more on the subject. If you still want work, apart from this desire for unsuitable finery, since you are my G.o.d-daughter I will forget what has pa.s.sed and still try you at the spring cleaning."

Then it was that a horrid thing happened to Loveday.

"What do I care for you and your spring-cleaning?" she stormed, "you and it can go up the chimney together for all I care. I only wanted you to give me work so as to get my satin sash, and I'll never come near you or church again as long as I do live. That I won't...." And Loveday turned and ran out of the front door, beneath the grinning fox, and not only ran out of the front door, but banged it behind her.

Maids in the kitchen heard that unseemly sound, as they had heard, awe-struck, the raised voice, and Mrs. Veale felt she must read them a short but fitting lesson on the dire results of wanting things beyond one's station. The stout cook and the crisp housemaid soon knew of Loveday's presumptuous ambition, a knowledge they shared now with the Lear family and Cherry Cotton, and that soon was to spread to the accompaniment of many a t.i.tter about the twisted ways of the village.

CHAPTER VIII: IN WHICH LOVEDAY CONTINUES HER QUEST AND ACHIEVES TENPENCE

Chapter VIII

IN WHICH LOVEDAY CONTINUES HER QUEST AND ACHIEVES TENPENCE

Loveday ran down the path to the Vicarage gate so fast that the tears she had not been able to restrain blew off her cheeks as she went. Thus it came about that she did not see Miss Let.i.tia until she had all but knocked her down in the urgency of her flight.

Let.i.tia Veale was no sylph such as Miss Le Pett.i.t, however, and she caught hold of Loveday like the good-natured, rather romping, young lady that she was. Mrs. Veale always said of her that she would "fine down,"

but persons less well disposed to her than her own mother, and who were the mothers of daughters themselves, said that Let.i.tia Veale was a sad hoyden. She had ever a merry nod or word for Loveday, and dazed with anger as that ill-balanced maid was, Let.i.tia's smile won her to comparative calm again, though it was a calm with which cunning intermingled. For:--

"Oh, miss," cried Loveday, "I do beg your pardon ..." Then, seeing by the young lady's pleasant face that she had not offended by her clumsiness--"but I was so sick with misery I didn't rightly see where I was going."

"Why, whatever is the matter, Loveday?" asked the lively girl.

"Miss, I can't tell you, not now, but oh, miss, you've always been good to me, will you do something for me? I've never asked you for nothing before, have I?"

"Why, no, you have not, Loveday. What is it?"

"Have you such a thing as an old white sash you could let me have, miss?

I just can't rightly tell you how I want it. It don't matter how old, so I can wash and iron it. Oh, miss...?"

Let.i.tia thought for a moment, then shook her brown ringlets.

"I'm so sorry, Loveday, since you want it so much, but the only white sash I have is my new one for Flora Day. I have an old black one I could let you have though."

"Black! Oh, Miss Let.i.tia, that's no good. Couldn't you let me have the white one? I'll work and work to make the money to buy you another, and your mother'd get you a new one for the Flora."

"Loveday, you know I couldn't. Mamma would insist on knowing what I'd done with it, you know she would."

"You couldn't--you couldn't say you'd lost it, miss?" asked Loveday, even her tongue faltering at the suggestion.

But though Let.i.tia might be a romp, she was not a deceitful girl, and she respected her mother.

"Oh, Loveday, how can you suggest such a thing? It would be telling mamma a lie. Besides, she would never believe me."

At this moment Mrs. Veale, hearing voices, opened the door and looked out.

"Let.i.tia! Come in at once, and do not speak again to Loveday Strick."

Let.i.tia made round eyes at Loveday and sped up the path. Loveday pushed open the gate and went out.

She went along the white dusty road, between the hedgerows of elder whose crumpled green leaves were unfolding in the sunny April weather, and her tears were the only rain that smiling country-side had seen for many a day, and they, to match the month, were already drying, for the fire burnt too high in Loveday for tears to hold her long. She fled along the road at first blindly, then more slowly as the exhaustion that follows on such rage as hers overcame her, and as she paused at last to sink against a mossy bank and rest, a horseman overtook her.