Amy Walton

“ 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. ”

“ Lilac liked to hear Joshua talk about old days, but she was eager too to tell her own news. There was so much that he did not know: all about hay-harvest, and her butter-making, about Lenham fête, and her cousins, and, finally, all about None-so-pretty and Peter. “I do think,” she added, “as how I like him best of any of ’em, for all they say he’s so common.”
“Common or uncommon, they’d do badly without him,” muttered Joshua. “He’s the very prop and pillar of the place, is Peter; if a wall’s strong enough to hold the roof up, you don’t ask if it’s made of marble or stone.” ”

“ There was the little garden and the sweet-peas she had sown, just showing green above the earth: would she never see them bloom? There on the window sill were her knitting-pins and a half-finished stocking: was it possible that Lilac would never hear them click again in her busy fingers? There, most familiar object of all, was the clothes line. Lilac could almost fancy she saw her mother’s straight active figure, as she had done scores of times, stretching up her arms to fasten the clothes with wooden pegs, her skirt tucked up, her arms bare, her sunbonnet tilted over her eyes. ”

“ She would miss the beasts sorely, and they would miss her: the cows she was learning to milk, the great horses who jingled their medals and bowed their heads so gently as she stood on tiptoe to feed them, the clever old donkey who could unfasten any gate and let all the animals out of a field: the pigs, even the sheep, who were silliest of all, knew her well and showed pleasure at her coming. She looked with affection, too, at the bare little attic, out of whose window she had gazed so often with eyes full of tears at the white walls of her old home on the hillside. ”

“ There’s your own name now—Lilac. It’s a common bush lilac is; it grows every bit as well in a little bit of garden nigh the road as in a grand park, and it hasn’t no rare colours to take the eye. And yet on a sunshiny day after rain the folks passing’ll say, ‘Whatever is it as smells so beautiful?’ Why it’s just the common lilac bush. You ought to be like that in a manner of speaking—not to try and act clever and smart so as to make folks stare, but to be good-tempered and peaceful and loving, so as they say when you leave ’em, ‘What made the place so pleasant? Why, it was Lilac White. ”

“ Instead of the notes of the birds there were human voices calling to each other, laughing, singing, shouting, and the music of a band; instead of great silent spaces, there were many brightly-coloured figures which ran and danced. In the midst, where a clearing had been made and the oldest trees stood solemnly round, there appeared the slim form of a maypole decked with gay ribbons; near it a throne covered with hawthorn boughs, on which, dressed in white with garland and sceptre, was seated the Queen of the May. ”

“ Lilac’s eyes shone with delight. Her aunt spoke as though she were bestowing a favour, and she felt it indeed to be such.
“Oh! thank you, Aunt,” she cried. “I’m quite sure as how I can do it, and I like it ever so much.”
“With Agnetta to help you I dessay you’ll get through with it,” said Mrs Greenways graciously, and so the matter was settled. Lilac was dairymaid! No longer a little household drudge, called hither and thither to do everyone’s work, but an important person with a business and position of her own. ”

“ Not the sunshine alone. It rested on something in the window, which stood out in gorgeous splendour from the white bareness of its surroundings—the cactus had bloomed! Yes, the cactus had really burst into two blossoms, of such size and brilliancy that with the sunlight upon them they were positively dazzling to behold. Lilac sat and blinked her red eyes at them in admiration and wonder. ”

“ Bella was considered a fine young woman. She had a large frame like all the Greenways, and nature had given her a waist in proportion to it. She had, however, fought against nature and conquered, for her figure now resembled an hour-glass—very wide at the top, and suddenly very small in the middle. Like Agnetta she had a great deal of colour, frizzy black hair, and a good-natured expression, but her face was just now clouded by some evident vexation. ”

“ A soft wind went whispering and sighing to itself in the trees overhead, carrying with it the sweetness of the hayfields and the honeysuckle in the hedges, owls hooted mysteriously, and the frogs croaked in some distant pond. Creatures never seen in the daytime were now awake and busy. As Lilac ran along, the bats whirred close past her face, and she saw in the grass by the wayside the steady little light of the glow-worms. It was certainly very late; there was hardly a glimmer of hope that anyone would be up at the farm. It was equally certain that, if there were, a scolding waited for Lilac. ”

“ Joshua took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at her in some surprise.
“Common things—eh?” he repeated.
“Yes, Uncle,” said Lilac hesitatingly, and trying to think of how to make it clear. But she could only add:
“They call the pigs common too.”
“Well, as to pigs,” said Joshua, “I wish they was commoner still. I don’t despise a bit of bacon myself. I call that a good thing anyhow. When one comes to look at it,” he continued after a few puffs at his pipe, “the best things of all is common. The things as is under our feet and nigh to our hand and easy to be got. ”

“ So this was Lilac’s welcome. She went to the window, leant her arms on the broad sill, and looked forlornly up at the hill. There was not a single person who wanted her here, or who had taken the trouble to say a kind word. How could she bear to live here always?
“Li-lack!” shrieked a voice up the stairs, “you’re to come to tea.”
Through the meal that followed Lilac sat shyly silent, feeling that every morsel choked her, and listening to the clatter of voices and teacups round her but hardly hearing any words. The farmer had noticed her presence by a nod, and then resumed his newspaper. ”

“ Lilac checked her laughter. “Here’s a riddle,” she said. “The brownie you locked into the stable that night always makes the butter. 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 butter this ever so long, and it was me as was in the stable on Saint Barnaby’s!” ”

“ 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 ”

“ She’s made her own place, and she stands firm in it on her own feet, and no one would fill it as well. It’s wonderful that is, how small things may help big ones. Look at it!” said Joshua, spreading out the palms of his hands. “You take a little weak child into your house and think she’s of no count at all, either to help or to hinder; she’s so small and the place is so big you hardly know she’s there. And then one day you wake up to find that she’s gone quietly on doing her best, and learning to do better, until she’s come to be one of the most useful people on the farm. ”

“ Lilac White. White Lilac,” repeated the cobbler musingly. “Well, ma’am, ’tis a pleasant bush and a homely; I can’t wish the maid no better than to grow up like her name.”
“Why, you wouldn’t for sure wish her to grow up homely, would you now, Mr Snell?” said Mrs Wishing with a feeble laugh.
“I would, ma’am,” replied Mr Snell, turning rather a severe eye upon the questioner, “I would. For why? Because to be homely is to make the common things of home sweet and pleasant. She can’t do no better than that.” ”

“ It was a good long distance from his height to Lilac, and she seemed wonderfully small and slender and delicately coloured as she stood there in her straight black frock and long pinafore. She had taken off her sun bonnet, so that her little white face with all the hair fastened back from it was plainly to be seen. It struck Peter as strange that such a small creature should talk of taking any more work “in hand” besides what she had to do already.
“You hadn’t ought to do hard work,” he said at length; “you haven’t got the strength.” ”

“ Lilac watched her dreamily for a little while, and then her thoughts wandered on to Peter and became more and more confused. He got mixed up with Joshua, and the cactus and None-so-pretty and heaps of white flowers. “The common things are the best things,” she seemed to hear over and over again. Then quite suddenly she was in Mrs Wishing’s cottage, and the loft was filled with the heavy sickly smell of poppy tea: it was so strong that it made her feel giddy and her eyelids seemed pressed down by a firm hand. ”

“ I haven’t common patience with you, Greenways, when you talk like that. It’s all very well for you; and I s’pose you’re ready to pay for a dairymaid in her place. But I know this: If Lilac’s got a drop of gratitude in her, and a bit of proper feeling, she’ll think first of what she owes to her only relations living.”
“Well, you ought to ’a told her how useful she was if you wanted her to know it,” said Mr Greenways. “You’ve always gone on the other tack and told her she was no good at all. I shouldn’t blame her if she wanted to try if she could please other folks better.” ”

“ She wanted to be alone and think it over for the last time; after that she would go to Mrs Leigh and tell her what she meant to do, and then all the worry would be over. She strolled absently along, with the same tiresome question in her mind, through the untidy bushy garden, past Peter’s flower bed, gay with chrysanthemums and Michaelmas daisies, until she came to the row of beehives, silent, deserted-looking dwellings now with only one or two languid inhabitants to be seen crawling torpidly about the entrances. ”

“ Lilac sat down on the cherry-tree stump opposite them, and, for a moment leaving the old subject, her mind went back to the spring evening when Peter had cut the bunch of flowers for her, and let the bees crawl over his fingers. She smiled to herself as she remembered how suddenly he had gone away without giving her the nosegay at all. Poor Peter! she understood him better now. As she thought this there was a click of the gate leading into the field, she turned her head, and there was Peter himself coming towards her with his dog Sober at his heels. ”

“ Only the voice of the wind, which blew so freshly up here and seemed to cheer him on, and the song of the larks high above his head, and for companions his good beasts with no reproof in their patient eyes, but only obedience and kindness. Peter was master in the High Field. No one could do a better day’s work or drive a straighter furrow, and he was proud of it, and proud of his team—three iron-greys, with white manes and tails, called “Pleasant”, “Old Pleasant”, and “Young Pleasant.” ”