White Lilac; or the Queen of the May Part 21

"I thought maybe you'd laugh at me," he said, turning his head away ashamed.

Lilac checked her laughter. "Here's a riddle," she said. "The brownie you locked into the stable that night always makes the b.u.t.ter. He isn't never thanked nor yet paid, but you've looked him in the face scores of times."

Peter gazed blankly at her.

"You're doing of it now!" she cried with a chuckle of delight; "you're looking at the brownie now! Why, you great goose, it's me as has made the b.u.t.ter this ever so long, and it was me as was in the stable on Saint Barnaby's!"

It was only by very slow degrees that Peter could turn his mind from the brownie, on whom it had been fixed for weeks past, to take in this new and astonis.h.i.+ng idea. Even when Lilac had told her story many times, and explained every detail of how she had learnt to be dairymaid, he broke out again:

"But how _could_ you do it? You didn't know before you came, and there's Bella and Agnetta was born on the farm, and doesn't know now.

Wonderful quick you must be, surely. And so little as you are--and quiet," he went on, staring at his cousin. "You don't make no more clatter nor fuss than a field-mouse."

"'Tisn't only noisy big things as is useful," said Lilac with some pride.

"It's harder to believe than the brownie," went on Peter, shaking his head; "a deal more cur'ous. I thought I had got hold of him, but I don't seem to understand this at all."

He fell into deep thought, shaking his head at intervals, and it was not until the farm was in sight that he broke silence again.

"The smallest person in the farm," he said slowly, "has brought back the credit of the farm. It's downright amazing. I'm not agoin' to say 'thank you,' though," he added with a smile as they drove in at the gate.

A sudden thought flashed into Lilac's mind. "Oh, Peter," she cried, "the flowers was lovely on May Day, and the cactus is blooming beautiful! Was it the brownie as sent 'em, do you think?"

Peter made no reply to this, and his face was hidden, for he was plunging down to collect the parcels in the back of the cart. Lilac laughed as she ran into the house. What a funny one he was surely, and what a fine day's holiday she had been having!

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE CONCERT.

"But I will wear my own brown gown And never look too fine."

Months came and went. August turned his beaming yellow face on the waving cornfields, and pa.s.sed on leaving them shorn and bare. Then came September bending under his weight of apples and pears, and after him October, who took away the green mantle the woods had worn all the summer, and gave them one of scarlet and gold. He spread on the ground, too, a gorgeous carpet of crimson leaves, which covered the hillside with splendour so that it glowed in the distance like fire. Here and there the naked branches of the trees began to show sharply against the sky--soon it would be winter. Already it was so cold, that although it was earlier than usual Miss Ellen said they must begin to think of warming the church, and to do this they must have some money, and therefore the yearly village concert must be arranged.

"It was the new curate as come to me about it," said the cobbler to Mr Dimbleby one evening. "'You must give us a solo on the clar'net, Mr Snell,' says he."

"He's a civil-spoken young feller enough," remarked Mr Dimbleby, "but he's too much of a boy to please me. The last was the man for my money."

"Time'll mend that," said Joshua. "And what I like about him is that he don't bear no sort of malice when he's worsted in argeyment. We'd been differing over a pa.s.sage of Scripture t'other day, and when he got up to go, 'Ah, Mr Snell,' says he, 'you've a deal to learn.' 'And so have you, young man,' says I. Bless you, he took it as pleasant as could be, and I've liked him ever since."

He turned to Bella Greenways, who had just entered.

"And what's _your_ place in the programme, Miss Greenways?"

Bella always avoided speaking to the cobbler if she could, for while she despised him as a "low" person, she feared his opinion, and knew that he disapproved of her. She now put on her most mincing air as she replied:

"Agnetta and me's to play a duet, the 'Edinburgh Quadrilles,' and Mr Buckle accompanies on the drum and triangle."

"Why, you'd better fall in too with the clar'net, Mr Snell," suggested Mr Dimbleby. "That'd make a fine thing of it with four instruments."

Joshua shook his head solemnly.

"Mine's a solo," he said. "A sacred one: 'Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea.' That'll give a variety."

"Mr Buckle's going to recite a beautiful thing," put in Bella: "'The Dream of Eugene Aram'. He's been practising it ever so long. He's going to do it with action."

"I don't know as I can make much of that reciting," said Joshua doubtfully. "Now a good tune, or a song, or a bit of reading, I can take hold of and carry along, but it's poor sport to see a man twist hisself, and make mouths, and point about at nothing at all. I remember the first time the curate did it. He stares straight at me for a second, and then he shakes his fist and shouts out suddenly: 'Wretch!'

or 'Villain!' or summat of that sort. I was so taken aback I nearly got up and went out. Downright uncomfortable I was."

"It's all the fas.h.i.+on now. But of course," said Bella disdainfully, "it isn't everybody as is used to it. I'm sure it's beautiful to hear Charlie! It makes your blood run cold. There's a part where he has to speak it in a sort of a hissing whisper. He's afraid the back seats won't hear."

"And a good thing for 'em," muttered Joshua. "It's bad enough to see a man make a fool of hisself without having to hear him as well."

"But after all," continued Bella, without noticing this remark, "it's only the gentry as matter much, and they'll be in the two front rows.

Mrs Leigh's going to bring some friends."

"And what's Lilac White going to do?" said Joshua, turning round with sudden sharpness. "She used to sing the prettiest of 'em all at school."

"Oh, I dare say she'll sing in the part songs with the other children,"

said Bella carelessly. "They haven't asked her for a solo."

But although this was the case Lilac felt quite as interested and pleased as though she were to be the chief performer at the concert.

When the programme was discussed at the farm, which was very often, she listened eagerly, and was delighted to find that Mrs Leigh wished her to sing in two glees which she had learnt at school. The concert would be unusually good this year, everyone said, and each performer felt as anxious about his or her part as if its success depended on that alone.

Mr Buckle, next to his own recitation, relied a good deal on the introduction of a friend of his from Lenham, who had promised to perform on the banjo and sing a comic song--if possible.

"If you can get Busby," he repeated over and over again, "it'll be the making of the thing, and so I told Mrs Leigh."

"What did she say?" enquired Bella.

"Well, she wanted to know what he would sing. But, as I said to her, you can't treat Busby as you would the people about here. He moves in higher circles and he wouldn't stand it. You can't tie him down to a particular song, he must sing what he feels inclined to. After all, I don't suppose he'll come. He's so sought after."

"Well, it is awkward," said Bella, "not being certain--because of the programme."

"Oh, they must just put down, _Song, Mr Busby_, and leave a blank.

It's often done."

Each time Mr Buckle dropped in at the farm just now he brought fresh news relating to Mr Busby.

He could, or could not come to the concert, so that an exciting state of uncertainty was kept up. As the day grew nearer the news changed.

Busby would certainly _come_, but he had a dreadful cold so that it was hardly probable he would be able to sing. Lilac heard it all with the greatest sympathy. The house seemed full of the concert from morning till night. As she went about her work the strains of the "Edinburgh Quadrilles" sounded perpetually from the piano in the parlour.

Sometimes it was Agnetta alone, slowly pounding away at the ba.s.s, and often coming down with great force and determination on the wrong chords; sometimes Bella and Agnetta at the same time, the treble das.h.i.+ng along brilliantly, and the ba.s.s lumbering heavily in the distance but contriving to catch it up at the end by missing a few bars; sometimes Mr Buckle arriving with his drum and triangle there was a grand performance of all three, when Lilac and Molly, taking furtive peeps at them through the half-open door, were struck with the sincerest admiration and awe. It was indeed wonderful as well as deafening to hear the noise that could be got out of those three instruments; they seemed to be engaged in a sort of battle in which first one was triumphant and then another.

"It's a _little_ loud for this room," observed Mr Buckle complacently, "but it'll sound very well at the concert." Bella felt sure that it would be far the best thing in the programme, not only because the execution was spirited and brilliant but on account of the stylish appearance of the performers. Mr Buckle had been persuaded to wear his volunteer uniform on the occasion, in which, with his drum slung from his shoulders and the triangle fastened to a chair, so that he could kick it with one foot, he made a very imposing effect.

Agnetta and Bella had coaxed their mother into giving them new dresses of a bright blue colour called "electric", which, being made up by themselves in the last fas.h.i.+on, were calculated to attract all eyes.

These preparations, whilst they excited and interested Lilac, also made her a little envious. She began to wish she had something pretty to put on in honour of the concert, and even to have a faint hope that her aunt might give her a new dress too. But this did not seem even to occur to Mrs Greenways, and Lilac soon gave up all thoughts of it with a sigh.

Her Sunday frock was very shabby, but after all just to stand up amongst the other children it would not show much. She took it out of her box and looked at it: perhaps there was something she could do to smarten it up a little. It certainly hung in a limp flattened manner across the bed, and was even beginning to turn a rusty colour; nothing would make it look any different. Would one of her cottons be better, Lilac wondered anxiously. But none of the children would wear cottons, she knew--they all put on their Sunday best for the concert. The black frock must do. She could put a clean frill in the neck, and brush her hair very neatly, but that was all. There was no one she remembered to take much notice what she wore, so it did not matter.