White Lilac; or the Queen of the May Part 4

She kept silence, therefore, and st.i.tched away with a mind as busy as her fingers, until it was time to boil the kettle and get the tea ready.

This was just done when Mrs Wishing, who lived still farther up the hill, dropped in on her way home from the village.

She was an uncertain, wavering little woman, with no will of her own, and a heavy burden in the shape of a husband, who, during the last few years, had taken to fits of drinking. The widow White acknowledged that she had a good deal to bear from Dan'l, and when times were very bad, often supplied her with food and firing from her own small store. But she did not do so without protest, for in her opinion the fault was not entirely on Dan'l's side. "Maybe," she said, "if he found a clean hearth and a tidy bit o' supper waitin' at home, he'd stay there oftener. An' if he worked reg'lar, and didn't drink his wages, you'd want for nothin', and be able to put by with only just the two of you to keep. But I can't see you starve."

Mrs Wishing fluttered in at the door, and, as she thought probable, was asked to have a dish of tea. Lilac bustled round the kitchen and set everything neatly on the table, while her mother, glancing at her now and then, stood at the window sewing with active fingers.

"Well, you're always busy, Mrs White," said the guest plaintively as she untied her bonnet strings. "I will say as you're a hard worker yourself, whatever you say about other folks."

"An' I hope as when the time comes as I can't work that the Lord 'ull see fit to take me," said Mrs White shortly.

"Dear, dear, you've got no call to say that," said Mrs Wishing, "you as have got Lilac to look to in your old age. Now, if it was me and Dan'l, with neither chick nor child--" She shook her head mournfully.

Mrs White gave her one sharp glance which meant "and a good thing too", but she did not say the words aloud; there was something so helpless and incapable about Mrs Wishing, that it was both difficult and useless to be severe with her, for the most cutting speeches could not rouse her from the mild despair into which she had sunk years ago. "I dessay you're right, but _I_ dunno," was her only reply to all reproaches and exhortations, and finding this, Mrs White had almost ceased them, except when they were wrung from her by some unusual example of bad management.

"An' so handy as she is," continued Mrs Wishing, her wandering gaze caught for a moment by Lilac's active little figure, "an' that's all your up-bringing, Mrs White, as I was saying just now to Mrs Greenways."

Mrs White, who was now pouring out the tea, looked quickly up at the mention of Mrs Greenways. She would not ask, but her very soul longed to know what had been said.

"She was talkin' about Lilac as I was in at Dimbleby's getting a bunch of candles," continued Mrs Wishing, "sayin' how her picture was going to be took; an' says she, 'It's a poor sort of picture as she'll make, with a face as white as her pinafore. Now, if it was Agnetta,' says she, 'as has a fine nateral bloom, I could understand the gentleman wantin' to paint _her_.'"

"I s'pose the gentleman knows best himself what he wants to paint," said Mrs White.

"Lor', of course he do," Mrs Wishing hastened to reply; "and, as I said to Mrs Greenways, 'Red cheeks or white cheeks don't make much differ to a gal in life. It's the upbringing as matters.'"

Mrs White looked hardly so pleased with this sentiment as her visitor had hoped. She was perfectly aware that it had been invented on the spot, and that Mrs Wishing would not have dared to utter it to Mrs Greenways. Moreover, the comparison between Lilac's paleness and Agnetta's fine bloom touched her keenly, for in this remark she recognised her sister-in-law's tongue.

The rivalry between the two mothers was an understood thing, and though it had never reached open warfare, it was kept alive by the kindness of neighbours, who never forgot to repeat disparaging speeches. Mrs White's opinions of the genteel uselessness of Bella and Gusta were freely quoted to Mrs Greenways, and she in her turn was always ready with a thrust at Lilac which might be carried to Mrs White.

When the widow had first heard of the artist's proposal, her intense gratification was at once mixed with the thought, "What'll Mrs Greenways think o' that?"

But she did not express this triumph aloud. Even Lilac had no idea that her mother's heart was overflowing with pleasure and pride because it was _her_ child, _her_ Lilac, whom the artist wished to paint. So now, though she bit her lip with vexation at Mrs Wishing's speech, she took it with outward calmness, and only replied, with a glance at her daughter:

"Lilac never was one to think much about her looks, and I hope she never will be."

Both the look and the words seemed to Lilac to have special meaning, almost as though her mother knew what she intended to do to-morrow; it seemed indeed to be written in large letters everywhere, and all that was said had something to do with it. This made her feel so guilty, that she began to be sure it would be very wrong to have a fringe.

Should she give it up? It was a relief when Mrs Wishing, leaving the subject of the picture for one of nearer interest, proceeded to dwell on Dan'l and his failings, so that Lilac was not referred to again. This well-worn topic lasted for the rest of the visit, for Dan'l had been worse than usual. He had "got the neck of the bottle", as Mrs Wishing expressed it, and had been in a hopeless state during the last week.

Her sad monotonous voice went grinding on over the old story, while Lilac, washing up the tea things, carried on her own little fears, and hopes, and wishes in her own mind. No one watching her would have guessed what those wishes were: she looked so trim and neat, and handled the china as deftly as though she had no other thought than to do her work well. And yet the inside did not quite match this proper outside, for her whole soul was occupied with a beautiful vision--herself with a fringe like Agnetta! It proved so engrossing that she hardly noticed Mrs Wishing's departure, and when her mother spoke she looked up startled.

"Yon's a poor creetur as never could stand alone and never will," she said. "It was the same when she was a gal--always hangin' on to someone, always wantin' someone else to do for her, and think for her.

Well! empty sacks won't never stand upright, and it's no good tryin' to make 'em."

Lilac made no reply, and Mrs White, seizing the opportunity of impressing a useful lesson, continued:

"Lor'! it seems only the other day as Hepzibah was married to Daniel Wishing. A pretty gal she was, with clinging, coaxing ways, like the suckles in the hedge, and everyone she come near was ready to give her a helping hand. And at the wedding they all said, 'There, now, she's got the right man, Hepzibah has. A strong, steady feller, and a good workman an' all, and one as'll look after her an' treat her kind.' But I mind what I said to Mrs Pinhorn on that very day: 'I hope it may be so,' I says, 'but it takes an angel, and not a man, to bear with a woman as weak an' shiftless as Hepzibah, and not lose his temper.' And now look at 'em! There's Dan'l taken to drink, and when he's out of himself he'll lift his hand to her, and they're both of 'em miserable. It does a deal o' harm for a woman to be weak like that. She can't stand alone, and she just pulls a man down along with her."

The troubles of the Wishings were very familiar to Lilac's ears, and, though she took her knitting and sat down on her little stool close to her mother, she did not listen much to what she was saying.

Mrs White, quite ignorant that her words of wisdom were wasted, continued admonishingly:

"So as you grow up, Lilac, and get to a woman, that's what you've got to learn--to trust to yourself; you won't always have a mother to look to.

And what you've got to do now is, to learn to do your work jest as well as you can, and then afterwards you'll be able to stand firm on yer own two feet, and not go leaning up against other folk, or be beholden to n.o.body. That's a good thing, that is. There's a saying, 'Heaven helps them as helps themselves'. If that poor Hepzibah had helped herself when she was a gal, she wouldn't be such a daundering creetur now, and Dan'l, he wouldn't be a curse instead of a blessin'."

When Lilac went up to her tiny room in the roof that night, her head felt too full of confusing thoughts to make it possible to go to bed at once. She knelt on a box that stood in the window, fastened back the lattice, and, leaning on the sill, looked out into the night. The greyness of evening was falling over everything, but it was not nearly dark yet, so that she could see the windings of the chalky road which led down to the valley, and the church tower, and even one of the gable windows in Orchards Farm, where a light was twinkling. Generally this last object was a most interesting one to her, but to-night she did not notice outside things much, for her mind was too busy with its own concerns. She had, for the first time in her life, something quite new and strange to think of, something of her own which her mother did not know; and though this may seem a very small matter to people whose lives are full of events, to Lilac it was of immense importance, for until now her days had been as even and unvaried as those of any daisy that grows in a field. But to-morrow, two new things were to happen--she was to have her hair cut, and to have her picture painted. "A poor sort of picture," Mrs Greenways had said it would be, and, no doubt, Lilac agreed in her own mind Agnetta would make a far finer one--Agnetta, who had red cheeks, and a fringe already, and could dress herself so much smarter. Would a fringe really improve her? Agnetta said so. And yet--her mother--was it worth while to risk vexing her? But it would grow. Yes, but in the picture it would never grow. The more she thought, the more difficult it was to see her way clear; as the evening grew darker and more shadowy, so her reflections became dimmer and more confused; at last they were suddenly stopped altogether, for a bat which had come forth on its evening travels flapped straight against her face under the eaves. Thoroughly roused, Lilac drew in her head, shut her window, and was very soon fast asleep in bed.

Night is said to bring counsel, and perhaps it did so in some way, although she slept too soundly to dream, for punctually at eleven o'clock the next morning she was at the meeting-place appointed by Agnetta at the farm.

This was a loft over the cows' stables, the only place when, at that hour, they could be sure of no interruption.

"The proper place 'ud be my bedroom," Agnetta had said, "where there's a mirror an' all; but it's Bella's too, you see, an' just now she's making a new bonnet, and she's forever there trying it on. But I'll bring the scissors and do it in a jiffy."

And here was Agnetta armed with the scissors, and a certain authority of manner she always used with her cousin.

"Tek off yer bonnet and undo yer plaits," she said, opening and shutting the bright scissors with a snap, as though she longed to begin.

Lilac stood with her back against a truss of hay, rather shrinking away, for now that the moment had really come she felt frightened, and all her doubts returned. She had the air of a pale little victim before her executioner.

"Come," said Agnetta, with another snap.

"Oh, Agnetta, do you really think they'll like it?" faltered Lilac.

"What I really think is that you're a ninny," said the determined Agnetta; "an' I'm not agoin' to wait here while you shilly-shally. Is it to be off or on?"

"Oh off, I suppose," said Lilac.

With trembling fingers she took off her bonnet, and unfastened her hair from its plait. It fell like a dark silky veil over her shoulders.

"Lor'!" said Agnetta, "you have got a lot of it."

She stood for a second staring at her victim open-mouthed with the scissors upraised in one hand, then advanced, and grasping a handful of the soft hair drew it down over Lilac's face.

"Oh, Agnetta," cried an imploring voice behind the screen thus formed, "you'll _be_ careful! You won't tek off too much."

"Come nearer the light," said Agnetta.

Still holding the hair, she drew her cousin towards the wide open doors of the loft. "Now," she said, "I can see what I'm at, an' I shan't be a minute."

The steel scissors struck coldly against Lilac's forehead. It was too late to resist now. She held her breath. Grind, grind, snip! they went in Agnetta's remorseless fingers, and some soft waving lengths of hair fell on the ground. It certainly did not take long; after a few more short clips and snips Agnetta had finished, and there stood Lilac fashionably shorn, with the poor discarded locks lying at her feet.

It was curious to see how much Agnetta's handiwork had altered her cousin's face. Lilac's forehead was prettily shaped, and though she had worn her hair "scrattled" off it, there were little waving rings and bits which were too short to be "scrattled", and these had softened its outline. But now the pure white forehead was covered by a lump of hair which came straight across the middle of it, and the small features below looked insignificant. The expression of intelligent modesty which had made Lilac look different from other girls had gone; she was just an ordinary pale-faced little person with a fringe.

"There!" exclaimed Agnetta triumphantly as she drew a small hand-gla.s.s from her pocket; "now you'll see as how I was right. You won't hardly know yerself."

Lilac took it, longing yet fearing to see herself. From the surface of the gla.s.s a stranger seemed to return her glance--someone she had never seen before, with quite a different look in her eyes. Certainly she was altered. Was it for the better? She did not know, and before she could tell she must get more used to this new Lilac White. At present she had more fear than admiration for her.

"Clump! clump!" came the sound of heavy feet up the loft ladder. Lilac let the gla.s.s fall at her side, and turned a terrified gaze on Agnetta.

"Oh, what's that?" she cried. "Let me hide--don't let anyone see me!"