White Lilac; or the Queen of the May - Amy Walton (mystery books to read TXT) 📗

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 God."--_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 washing. 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 distinguishing 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