White Lilac; or the Queen of the May Part 3

"And," pursued Agnetta, "a few artificials in yer hair, like the ladies in our _Book of Beauty_, that 'ud brighten you up a bit. Bella's got some red roses with dewdrops on 'em, an' a caterpillar just like life.

She'd lend you 'em p'r'aps, an' I don't know but what I'd let you have my silver locket just for once."

"I'm afraid he wouldn't like that," said Lilac dejectedly, "because he said quite earnest, '_Mind_ you bring the bonnet'."

She saw herself for a moment in the splendid attire Agnetta had described, and gave a little sigh of longing.

"I must go back," she said, getting up suddenly, "Mother'll want me.

There's lots to do at home."

"I'll go with you a piece," said Agnetta; "we'll go through the farmyard way so as I can leave the basin."

This was a longer way home for Lilac than across the fields, but she never thought of disputing Agnetta's decision, and the cousins left the orchard by another gate which led into the garden. It was not a very tidy garden, and although some care had been bestowed on the vegetables, the flowers were left to come up where they liked and how they liked, and the gra.s.s plot near the house was rank and weedy. Nevertheless it presented a gay and flourishing appearance with its ma.s.ses of polyanthus in full bloom, its tulips, and Turk's head lilies, and lilac bushes.

There was one particular bed close to the gate which had a neater appearance than the rest, and where the flowers grew in a well-ordered manner as though accustomed to personal attention. The edges of the turf were trimly clipped, and there was not a weed to be seen. It had a mixed border of forget-me-not and London pride.

"How pretty your flowers grow!" said Lilac, stopping to look at it with admiration.

"Oh, that's Peter's bed," said Agnetta carelessly, snapping off some blossoms. "He's allays mucking at it in his spare time--not that he's got much, there's so much to do on the farm."

The house was now in front of them, and a little to the left the various, coloured roofs of the farm buildings, some tiled with weather-beaten bricks, some thatched, some tarred, and the bright yellow straw ricks standing here and there. Between these buildings and the house was a narrow lane, generally ankle-deep in mud, which led into the highroad.

Lilac was very fond of the farmyard and all the creatures in it. She stopped at the gate and looked over at a company of small black pigs routing about in the straw.

"Oh, Agnetta!" she exclaimed, "you've got some toiny pigs; what peart little uns they are!"

"I can't abide pigs," said Agnetta with a toss of her curl-papered head; "no more can't Bella, we neither of us can't. Nasty, vulgar, low-smelling things."

Lilac felt that hers must be a vulgar taste as Agnetta said so, but still she _did_ like the little pigs, and would have been glad to linger near them. It was often puzzling to her that Agnetta called so many things common and vulgar, but she always ended by thinking that it was because she was so superior.

"Here, Peter!" exclaimed Agnetta suddenly. A boy in leather leggings and a smock appeared at the entrance of the barn, and came tramping across the straw towards them at her call. "Just take this into the kitchen," said his sister in commanding tones. "Now," turning to Lilac, "we can go t'other way across the fields. The lane's all in a muck."

Peter slouched away with the basin in his hand. He was a heavy-looking youth, and so shy that he seldom raised his eyes from the ground.

"No one 'ud think," said Agnetta as the girls entered the meadow again, "as Peter was Bella's and Gusta's and my brother. He's so dreadful vulgar-lookin' dressed like that. He might be a common ploughboy, and his manners is awful."

"Are they?" said Lilac.

"Pa won't hear a word against him," continued Agnetta, "cause he's so useful with the farm work. He says he'd rather see Peter drive a straight furrow than dress himself smart. But Bella and me we're ashamed to be seen with him, we can't neither of us abide commoners."

Common! there was the word again which seemed to mean so many things and yet was so difficult to understand. Common things were evidently vulgar. The pigs were common, Peter was common, perhaps Lilac herself was common in Agnetta's eyes. "And yet," she reflected, lifting her gaze from the yellow carpet at her feet to the flowering orchards, "the cherry blossoms and the b.u.t.tercups are common too; would Agnetta call them vulgar?"

She had not long to think about this, for her cousin soon introduced another and a very interesting subject.

"Who's goin' to be Queen this year, I wonder?" she said; "there'll be a sight of flowers if the weather keeps all on so fine."

"It'll be you, Agnetta, for sure," answered Lilac; "I know lots who mean to choose you this time."

"I dessay," said Agnetta with an air of lofty indifference.

"Don't you want to be?" asked Lilac.

The careless tone surprised her, for to be chosen Queen of the May was not only an honour, but a position of importance and splendour. It meant to march at the head of a long procession of children, in a white dress, to be crowned with flowers in the midst of gaiety and rejoicing, to lead the dance round the maypole, and to be first throughout a day of revelry and feasting. To Lilac it was the most beautiful of ceremonies to see the Queen crowned; to join in it was a delight, but to be chosen Queen herself would be a height of bliss she could hardly imagine. It was impossible therefore, to think her cousin really indifferent, and indeed this was very far from the case, for Agnetta had set her heart on being Queen, and felt tolerably sure that she should get the greatest number of votes this year.

"I don't know as I care much," she answered; "let's sit down here a bit."

They sat down one each side of a stile, with their faces turned towards each other, and Agnetta again fixed her direct gaze critically on her cousin's figure. Lilac twirled her sunbonnet round somewhat confusedly under these searching glances.

"It's a pity you wear your hair scrattled right off your face like that," said Agnetta at last; "it makes you look for all the world like Daisy's white calf."

"Does it?" said Lilac meekly; "Mother likes it done so."

"I know something as would improve you wonderful, and give you a bit of style--something as would make the picture look a deal better."

"Oh, what, Agnetta?"

"Well, it's just as simple as can be. It's only to take a pair of scissors and cut yer hair like mine in front so as it comes down over yer face a bit. It 'ud alter you ever so. You'd be surprised."

Lilac started to her feet, struck with the immensity of the idea. A fringe! It was a form of elegance not unknown amongst the school-children, but one which she had never thought of as possible for herself.

There was Agnetta's stolid rosy face close to her, as unmoved and unexcited as if she had said nothing unusual.

"Oh, Agnetta, _could_ I?" gasped Lilac.

"Whyever not?" said her cousin calmly.

Lilac sat down again. "I dursn't," she said. "I couldn't ever bear to look Mother in the face."

"Has she ever told you not?"

"N-no," answered Lilac hesitatingly; "leastways she only said once that the girls made frights of themselves with their fringes."

"Frights indeed!" said Agnetta scornfully; "anyhow," she added, "it 'ull grow again if she don't like it." So it would. That reflection made the deed seem a less daring one, and Lilac's face at once showed signs of yielding, which Agnetta was not slow to observe. Warming with her subject, she proceeded to paint the improvement which would follow in glowing colours, and in this she was urged by two motives--one, an honest desire to smarten Lilac up a little, and the other, to vex and thwart her aunt, Mrs White; to pay her out, as she expressed it, for sundry uncomplimentary remarks on herself and Bella.

"And supposing," was Lilac's next remark, "as how I _was_ to make up my mind, I couldn't never do it for myself. I should be scared."

This difficulty the energetic Agnetta was quite ready to meet. _She_ would do it. Lilac had only to run down to the farm early next morning, and, after she was made fashionable, she could go straight on to the artist. "And won't he just be surprised!" she added with a chuckle. "I don't expect he'll hardly know you."

"You're _quite_ sure it'll make me look better?" said Lilac wistfully.

She had the utmost faith in her cousin, but the step seemed to her such a terribly large one.

"Ain't I?" was Agnetta's scornful reply. "Why, Gusta says all the ladies in London wears their hair like that now."

After this last convincing proof, for Gusta's was a name of great authority, Lilac resisted no longer, and soon discovered, by the striking of the church clock, that it was getting very late. She said good-bye to Agnetta, therefore, and, leaving her to make her way back at her leisure, ran quickly on through the meadows all streaked and sprinkled with the spring flowers. After these came the dusty high-road for a little while, and then she reached the foot of the steep hill which led up to her home. The artist gentleman was there as usual, a pipe in his mouth, and a palette on his thumb, painting busily: as she hurriedly dropped a curtsy in pa.s.sing, Lilac's heart beat quite fast.

"Me in a picture with a fringe!" she said to herself; "how I do hope as Mother won't mind!"

That afternoon, when she sat quietly down to her sewing, this great idea weighed heavily upon her. It would be the very first step she had ever taken without her mother's approval, and away from the influence of Agnetta's decided opinion it seemed doubly alarming--a desperate and yet an attractive deed.

Now and then for a moment she thought it would be better to tell her mother, but when she looked up at the grave, rather sad face, bent closely over some needlework, she lacked courage to begin. It seemed far removed from such trifles as fringes and fashions; and though, as Lilac knew well, it could have at times a smile full of love upon it, just now its expression was thoughtful, and even stern.