White Lilac; or the Queen of the May Part 5

Agnetta burst into a loud laugh.

"Well, you _are_ a ninny, Lilac White. Are you goin' to hide from everyone now you've got a fringe? You as are goin' to have your picture took. An' after all," she added, as a face and shoulders appeared at the top of the ladder. "It's only Peter."

Peter's rough head and blunt, uncouth features were framed by the square opening in the floor of the loft. There they remained motionless, for the sight of Agnetta and Lilac where he had been prepared to find only hay and straw brought him to a standstill. His face and the tips of his large ears got very red as he saw Lilac's confusion, and he went a step lower down the ladder, but his eyes were still above the level of the floor.

"Well," said Agnetta, still giggling, "we'll hear what Peter thinks of it. Don't she look a deal better with her hair cut so, Peter?"

Peter's grey-green eyes, not unkindly in expression, fixed themselves on his cousin's face. In her turn Lilac gazed back at them, half-frightened, yet beseeching mutely for a favourable opinion; it was like looking into a second mirror. She waited anxiously for his answer.

It came at last, slowly, from Peter's invisible mouth.

"No," he said, "I liked it best as it wur afore." As he spoke the head disappeared, and they heard him go clumping down the ladder again. The words fell heavily on Lilac's ears. "Best as it wur afore." Perhaps everyone would think so too. She looked dismally first at the locks of hair on the ground and then at Agnetta's unconcerned face.

"Well, you've no call to mind what _he_ says anyhow," said the latter cheerfully. "He don't know what's what."

"I most wish," said Lilac, as she turned to leave the loft, "that I hadn't done it."

As she spoke, the distant sound of the church clock was heard. There was only just time to get to the foot of the hill, and she said a hurried good-bye to Agnetta, tying on her bonnet as she ran across the fields. She generally hated the sun-bonnet, but to-day for the first time she found a comfort in its deep brim, which sheltered this new Lilac White a little from the world. She almost hoped that the artist would change his mind and let her keep it on, instead of holding it in her hand.

CHAPTER THREE.

"UNCLE JOSHUA."

"Let each be what he is, so will he be good enough for man himself, and G.o.d."--_Lavater_.

Whilst all this was going on at the farm, Mrs White had been busy as usual in the cottage on the hill--her mind full of Lilac, and her hands full of the Rectory was.h.i.+ng. It was an important business, for it was all she and her child had to depend on beside a small pension allowed her by Jem's late employers; but quite apart from this she took a pride in her work for its own sake. She felt responsible not only for the unyielding stiffness of the Rector's round collars, but also for the appearance of the choristers' surplices; and any failure in colour or approach to limpness was a real pain to her, and made it difficult to fix her attention on the service. This happened very seldom, however; and when it did, was owing to an unfortunate drying day or other accident, and never to want of exertion on her own part.

There was nothing to complain of in the weather this morning--a bright sun and a nice bit of wind, and not too much of it. Mrs White wrung out the surplices in a very cheerful spirit, and her grave face had a smile on it now and then, for she was thinking of Lilac. Lilac sweetened all her life now, much in the same way that the bunch of flowers from which she took her name had sweetened the small room with its fragrance twelve years ago. As she grew up her mother's love grew too, stronger year by year; for when she looked at her she remembered all the happiness that her life had known--when she spoke her name, it brought back a thousand pleasant memories and kept them fresh in her mind. And she looked forward too, for Lilac's sake, and saw in years to come her proudest hope fulfilled--her child grown to be a self-respecting useful woman, who could work for herself and need be beholden to no one. She had no higher ambition for her; but this she had set her heart on, she should not become lazy, vain, helpless, like her cousins the Greenways. That was the pitfall from which she would strain every muscle to hold Lilac back. There were moments when she trembled for the bad influence of example at Orchards Farm. She knew Lilac's yielding affectionate nature and her great admiration for her cousins, and kept a watchful eye for the first unsatisfactory signs.

But there were none. No one could accuse Lilac of untidy ways, or want of thoroughness in dusting, sweeping, and all branches of household work, and even Mrs White could find no fault. "After all," she said to herself, "it's natural in young things to like to be together, and there's nothing worse nor foolishness in Agnetta and Bella." So she allowed the visits to go on, and contented herself by many a word in season and many a pointed practical lesson. The Greenways were seldom mentioned, but they were, nevertheless, very often in the minds of both mother and daughter.

This morning she was thinking of a much more pleasant subject. "How was the artist gentleman getting along with Lilac's picture? He must be well at it now," she thought, looking up at the loud-voiced American clock, "an' her looking as peart and pretty as a daisy. White-faced indeed! I'd rather she were white-faced than have great red cheeks like a peony bloom. What will he do with the picture afterwards?" Joshua Snell, through reading the papers so much, knew most things, and he had said that it would p'r'aps be hung up with a lot of others in a place in London called an exhibition, where you could pay money and go to see 'em. "If he's right," concluded Mrs White, wringing out the last surplice, "I do really think as how I must give Lilac a jaunt up to London, an' we'll go and see it. The last holiday as ever I had was fifteen years back, an' that was when Jem and me, we went--Why, I do believe," she said aloud, "here she is back a'ready!"

There was a sound of running feet, which she had heard too often to mistake, then the click of the latch, and then Lilac herself rushed through the front room.

"Mother, Mother," she cried, "he won't paint me!"

Mrs White turned sharply round. Lilac was standing just inside the entrance to the back kitchen, with her bonnet on, and her hands clasped over her face. To keep her bonnet on a moment after she was in the house struck her mother at once as something strange and unusual, and she stared at her for an instant in silence, with her bands held up dripping and pink from the water.

"Whatever ails you, child?" she said at length. "What made him change his mind?"

"He said as how I was the wrong one," murmured Lilac under her closed hands.

"The _wrong_ one!" repeated her mother. "Why, how could he go to say such a thing? You told him you was Lilac White, I s'pose. There's ne'er another in the village."

"He didn't seem as if he knew me," said Lilac. "He looked at me very sharp, and said as how it was no good to paint me now."

"Why ever not? You're just the same as you was."

"I ain't," said Lilac desperately, taking away her hands from her face and letting them fan at her side. "I ain't the same. I've cut my hair!"

It was over now. She stood before her mother a disgraced and miserable Lilac. The black fringe of hair across her forehead, the bonnet pushed back, the small white face quivering nervously.

But though she knew it would displease her mother, she had very little idea that she had done the thing of all others most hateful to her. A fringe was to Mrs White a sort of distinguis.h.i.+ng mark of the Greenways family, and of others like it. Not only was it ugly and unsuitable in itself, but it was an outward sign of all manner of unworthy qualities within. Girls who wore fringes were in her eyes stamped with three certain faults: untidiness, vanity, and love of dressing beyond their station. Beginning with these, who could tell to what other evils a fringe might lead? And now, her own child, her Lilac whom she had been so proud of, and thought so different from others, stood before her with this abomination on her brow. Bitterest of all, it was the influence of the Greenways that had triumphed, and not her own. All her care and toil had ended in this. It had all been in vain. If Lilac "took pattern" by her cousins in one way she would in another--"a straw can tell which way the wind blows." She would grow up like Bella and Agnetta.

Swiftly all this rushed into Mrs White's mind, as she stood looking with surprise and horror at Lilac's altered face. Finding her voice as she arrived at the last conclusion, she asked coldly:

"What made yer do it?"

Lilac locked her hands tightly together and made no answer. She would not say anything about Agnetta, who had meant kindly in what she had done.

"I know," continued her mother, "without you sayin' a word. It was one of them Greenways. But I did think as how you'd enough sense and sperrit of yer own to stand out agin' their foolishness--let alone anything else. It's plain to me now that you don't care for yer mother or what she says. You'll fly right in her face to please any of them at Orchards Farm."

Still Lilac did not speak, and her silence made Mrs White more and more angry.

"An' what do you think you've got by it?" she continued scornfully. "Do those silly things think it makes 'em look like ladies to cut their hair so and dress themselves up fine? Then you can tell 'em this from me: Vulgar they are, and vulgar they'll be all their lives long, and nothing they can do to their outsides will change 'em. But they might a left you alone, Lilac, for you're but a child; only I did think as you'd a had more sense."

Lilac was crying now. This scolding on the top of much excitement and disappointment was more than she could bear, but still she felt she must defend the Greenways from blame.

"It was my fault," she sobbed. "I thought as how it would look nicer."

"The many and many times," pursued Mrs White, drying her hands vigorously on a rough towel, "as I've tried to make you understand what's respectable and right and fitting! And it's all been no good.

Well, I've done. Go to your Greenways and let them teach you, and much profit may you get. I've done with you--you don't look like my child no longer."

She turned her back and began to bustle about with the linen, not looking towards Lilac again. In reality her eyes were full of tears and she would have given worlds to cry heartily with the child, for to use those hard words to her was like bruising her own flesh. But she was too mortified and angry to show it, and Lilac, after casting some wistful glances at the active figure, turned and went slowly out of the room with drooping head.

Pulling her bonnet forward so that her forehead and the dreadful fringe were quite hidden, she wandered down the hill, hardly knowing or caring where she went. All the world was against her. No one would ever look pleasantly at her again, if even her mother frowned and turned away.

One by one she recalled what they had all said. First, Peter: "I liked it best as it wur afore." Then the artist--he had been quite angry.

"You stupid little girl," he had said, "you've made yourself quite commonplace. You're no use whatever. Run away." And now Mother--that was worst of all: "You don't look like my child." Lilac's tears fell fast when she remembered that. How very hard they all were upon her!

She strayed listlessly onwards, and presently came to a sudden standstill, for she found that she was getting near the bottom of the hill, where the artist was no doubt still sitting. That would never do.

At her right hand there branched off a wide gra.s.s-grown lane, one of the ancient roads of the Romans which could still be traced along the valley. It was seldom used now, for it led nowhere in particular; but here and there at long distances there were some small cottages in it, and in one of these lived the cobbler, Joshua Snell.

Now, Uncle Joshua, as she called him, though he was no relation to her, was a great friend of Lilac's, and the thought of him darted into her forlorn little mind like a ray of comfort. He would perhaps look kindly at her in spite of her fringe. There was no one else to do it except Agnetta, and to reach her the artist must be pa.s.sed, which was impossible. Lilac could not remember that Joshua had ever been cross to her, even in the days when she had played with his bits of leather and mislaid his tools--those old days when she was a tiny child, and Mother had left her with him "to mind" when she went out to work. And besides being kind he was wise, and would surely find some way to help her in her present distress. Perhaps even he would speak to Mother, who thought a deal of what he said, and that would make her less angry. A little cheered by these reflections Lilac turned down the lane, quickened her pace, and made straight for the cobbler's cottage.

It was a very small abode, with such a deep thatch and such tiny windows that it looked all roof. At right angles there jutted out from it an extra room, or rather shed, and in this it was possible, by peering closely through a dingy pane of gla.s.s, to make out the dim figure of Joshua bending over his work. This dark little hole, in which there was just s.p.a.ce enough for Joshua, his boots and tools and leather, had no door from without, but could only be approached through the kitchen. As he sat at work he could see the fire and the clock without getting up, which was very convenient, and he was proud of his work-shed, though in the winter it was both chilly and dark. Joshua lived quite alone. He had come to Danecross twenty years ago from the north, bringing with him a wife, a collection of old books, and a clarionet. The wife, whose black bonnet still hung behind the kitchen door, had now been dead ten years, and he had only the books and the clarionet to bear him company.

But these companions kept him from being dull and lonely, and gave him besides a position of some importance in the village. For by dint of reading his books many times over, and pondering on them as he sat and cobbled, he had gained a store of wisdom, or what pa.s.sed for such, and a great many long words with which he was fond of impressing the neighbours. He was also considered a fine reader, and quite a musical genius; for although he now only played the clarionet in private, there had been a time, he told them, when he had performed in a gallery as one of the church choir.

It was now about four o'clock in the afternoon, and he sat earnestly intent on making a good job of a pair of boots which had been brought to him to sole. He was also anxious to make the most of the bright spring suns.h.i.+ne, a stray beam of which had found its way in at his little window and helped him greatly by its cheerful presence. All at once a shadow flitted across it, and glancing up he saw a well-known figure run hurriedly in at the cottage door. "It's White Lilac," he said to himself with a smile but without ceasing his work, for Lilac was a frequent visitor, and he could not afford to waste his time in welcoming his guests. He did not even look round, therefore, but listened for her greeting white his hammer kept up a steady tack, tack, tack. It did not come. Joshua stopped his work, raised his head, and listened more intently. The kitchen was as perfectly silent as though it were empty.

"I cert'nly did see her," said he, almost doubting his eyesight; "maybe she's playing off a game." He got up and looked cautiously round the entrance, quite expecting Lilac to jump out from some hiding-place with a laugh; but a very different sight met his eyes. Lilac had thrown herself into a large chair which stood on the hearth, her head was bent, her face buried in her hands, and she was crying bitterly.

"My word!" exclaimed Joshua, suddenly arrested on the threshold.

He rubbed his hands in great perplexity on his leather ap.r.o.n. It was quite a new thing to see Lilac in tears, and they fell so fast that she could neither control herself nor tell him the cause of her distress.

In vain he tried to coax and comfort her: she would not even raise her head nor look at him. Joshua looked round the room as if for counsel and advice in this difficulty, and fixed his eyes thoughtfully on the tall clock for some moments; then he winked at it, and said softly, as though speaking in confidence: "Best let her have her cry out; then she'll tell me."

"See here," he continued, turning to Lilac and using his ordinary voice.

"You've come to get Uncle's tea ready for him, I know, and make him some toast; that's what you've come for. An' I've got a job as I must finish afore tea-time, 'cause the owner's coming for 'em. So I'll go and set to and do it, and you'll get the tea ready like a handy maid as you are, and then we'll have it together, snug and cosy."

When he had settled himself to his work again, and the sound of his hammer mingled with the ticking of the tall clock as though they were running a race, Lilac raised her head and rubbed her wet eyes. There was something very soothing and peaceful in Uncle Joshua's cottage, and his kind voice seemed to carry comfort with it. She had a strong hope that he would help her in some way, though she could not tell how, for he had never failed to find a remedy for all the little troubles she had brought to him from her earliest years. Her faith in him, therefore, was entire, and even if he had proposed to make her hair long again at once, she would have believed it possible, because he knew so much.