Chapter Twelve.

Lilac’s Choice.

“A stone that is fit for the wall will not be left in the way.”—Old Proverb.

As the door closed on Lilac, the news burst forth from Mrs Greenways in such a torrent that it was difficult at first to follow, but at length she managed to make clear to her astonished hearers all that had passed between herself and Mrs Leigh. It was this: A lady staying at the Rectory had seen Lilac at the concert, and asked whom she was. Whereupon, hearing her history and her present occupation at Orchards Farm, she made the following suggestion. She wanted a second dairymaid, and was greatly pleased with Lilac’s appearance and neat dress. Would Mrs Leigh find out whether her friends would like her to take such a situation? She would give her good wages, and raise them if she found her satisfactory. “It’s a great opportunity for a child like Lilac,” Mrs Leigh had said to Mrs Greenways; “but I really think from what I hear of her that she is quite fit to take such a place.”

“Well, as to that,” said Mr Greenways slowly when his wife paused for breath, “I suppose she is. If she can manage the dairy alone here, she can do it with someone over her there.”

“Now I wonder who could ’a told Mrs Leigh that Lilac made our butter,” said Mrs Greenways; “somehow or other that child gets round everyone with her quiet ways.”

“Most likely that interfering old Joshua Snell,” said Bella, “or Peter maybe, or Ben. They all think no end of Lilac.”

“Well, I don’t see myself what they find in her,” said Mrs Greenways; “though she’s a good child enough and useful in her way. I should miss her now I expect; though, of course,” with a glance at her husband, “she wouldn’t leave us, not so long as we wanted her.”

“That’s for her to say,” said the farmer. “I’m not going to take a chance like that out of her mouth. She’s a good little gal and a credit to her mother, and it’s only fair and right she should choose for herself. Go or stay, I won’t have a word said to her. ’Tain’t every child of her age as has an offer like that, and she’s deserved it.”

“And who taught her all she knows?” said Mrs Greenways wrathfully. “Who gave her a home when she wanted one, and fed and kep’ her? And now as she’s just beginning to be a bit of use, she’s to take herself off at the first chance! 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.”

There was so much truth in this, that in spite of Mrs Greenways’ anger it sank deeply into her mind. Why had she not made more of Lilac? What should she do, if the child, with the consent of her uncle and encouraged by Mrs Leigh, were to choose to leave the farm? It was not unlikely, for although she had not been actively unkind to Lilac she had never tried to make her happy at the farm; her jealousy had prevented that. And then, the money—that would be a great temptation; and the offer of it seemed to raise Lilac’s value enormously. In short, now that someone else wanted her, and was willing to pay for her services, she became twice as important in Mrs Greenways’ eyes. One by one the various duties rose before her which Lilac fulfilled, and which would be left undone if she went away. She sat silent for a few minutes in moody thought.

“I didn’t say nothing certain to Mrs Leigh,” she remarked at length, “but I did mention as how we’d never had any thought of Lilac taking service, no more nor Agnetta or Bella.”

“Lor’, Ma!” said Bella, “the ideer!”

“All the same,” said the farmer, “when we first took Lilac we said we’d keep her till she was old enough for a place. The child’s made herself of use, and you don’t want to part with her. That’s the long and the short of it. But I stand by what I say. She shall settle it as she likes. She shall go to Mrs Leigh and hear about it, and then no one shan’t say a word to her, for or against. When’s she got to decide?”

“In a week,” answered his wife. “But you’re doing wrong, Greenways, you hadn’t ought to put it on the child’s shoulders; it’s us as ought to decide for her, us as are in the place of her father and mother. She’s too young to know what’s for her good.”

“I stand by what I say,” repeated the farmer, and he slapped the table with his hand. Mrs Greenways knew then that it was useless to oppose him further, and the conversation came to an end.

Now, when the matter was made known to Lilac, it seemed more like a dream than anything real. She had become so used to remain in the background, and go quietly on at her business without notice, that she could not at first believe in the great position offered to her. She was considered worth so much money a year! It was wonderful.

After she had seen Mrs Leigh, and heard that it really was true and no dream, another feeling began to take the place of wonder, and that was perplexity. The choice, they told her, was to remain in her own hands, and no one would interfere with it. What would be best? To go or stay? It was very difficult, almost impossible, to decide. Never in her short life had she yet been obliged to choose in any matter; there had always been a necessity which she had obeyed: “Do this,” “Go there.” The habit of obedience was strong within her, but it was very hard to be suddenly called to act for herself. And the worst of it was that no one would help her; even Mrs Leigh only said: “I shan’t persuade you one way or the other, Lilac, I shall leave it to you and your relations to consider.” Uncle Joshua had no counsel either. “You must put one against the other and decide for yourself, my maid,” he said; “there’ll be ups and downs wherever you go.” She studied her aunt’s face wistfully, and found no help there. Mrs Greenways kept complete and gloomy silence on the question.

Thrown back upon herself, Lilac’s perplexity grew with each day. If she went to sleep with her mind a little settled to one side of the matter, she woke up next morning to see many more advantages on the other. To leave Orchards Farm, and the village, and all the faces she had known since she could remember anything, and go to strangers! That would be dreadful. But then, there was the money to be thought of, and perhaps she might find the strangers kinder than her own relations. “It’s like weighing out the butter,” she said to herself; “first one side up and then t’other.” If only someone would say you must go, or you must stay.

During this week of uncertainty many things at the farm looked pleasanter than they had ever done before, and she was surprised at the interest everyone in the village took in her new prospects. They all had something to say about them, and though this did not help her decision but rather hindered it, she was pleased to find that they cared so much for her.

“And so you’re goin’ away,” said poor Mrs Wishing, fluttering into the farm one day and finding Lilac alone. “Seems as if I was to lose the on’y friend I’ve got. But I dunno. There was your poor mother, she was took, and now I shan’t see you no more. ’Tain’t as I see you often, but I know you might drop in anywhen and there’s comfort in that. Lor’! I shouldn’t be standing here now if you hadn’t come in that night—I was pretty nigh gone home that time. Might a been better p’r’aps for me and Dan’l too if I had. But you meant it kind.”

“Maybe I shan’t go away after all,” said Lilac soothingly.

“You’re one of the lucky ones,” continued Mrs Wishing. “I allers said that. Fust you get taken into a beautiful home like this, and then you get a place as a gal twice your age would jump at. Some gets all the ups and some gets all the downs. But I dunno!”

She went on her way with a weary hitch of the basket on her arm, and a pull at her thin shawl. Then Bella’s voice sounded beseechingly on the stairs:

“Oh, do come here a minute, Lilac.”

Bella was generally to be found in her bedroom just now, stitching away at various elegancies of costume. She turned to her cousin as she entered, and said with a puzzled frown:

“I’m in ever such a fix with this skirt. I can’t drape it like the picture do what I will, it hangs anyhow. And Agnetta can’t manage it either.”

Agnetta stood by, her face heated with fruitless labour, and her mouth full of pins.

Lilac examined the skirt gravely.

“You haven’t got enough stuff in it,” she said. “You’ll have to do it up some other way.”

“Pin it up somehow, then, and see what you can do,” said Bella. “I’m sick and tired of it.”

Lilac was not quite without experience in such things, for she had often helped her cousins with their dressmaking, and she now succeeded after a few trials in looping up the skirt to Bella’s satisfaction.

“That’s off my mind, thank goodness!” she exclaimed. “You’re a neat-fingered little thing; I don’t know what we shall do without you.”

It was a small piece of praise, but coming from Bella it sounded great.

Lilac’s affairs, her probable departure from the farm and how she would be much missed there, were much talked of in the village just now. The news even reached Lenham, carried by the active legs and eager tongue of Mrs Pinhorn, who, with many significant nods, as of one who could tell more if she chose, gave Mr Benson to understand that he might shortly find a difference in the butter. It was not for her to speak, with Ben working at the farm since a boy, but—So even the great and important Mr Benson was prepared to be interested in Lilac’s choice.

She often wondered, as day after day went by so quickly and left her still undecided, what her mother would have advised her to do. But then, if her mother had been alive, all this would not have happened. She tried nevertheless to imagine what she would have said about it, and to remember past words which might be of help to her now. “Stand on your own feet and don’t be beholden to anyone.” Certainly by taking this situation she would follow that advice, and child though she was, she knew it might be the beginning of greater things. If she filled this place well she might in time get another, and be worth even more money. But then, could she leave the farm? the home which had sheltered her when she had been left alone in the world. Who would take her place? No one could deny now that she would leave a blank which must be filled up. She could hardly bear to think of a stranger standing in her accustomed spot in the dairy, handling the butter, looking out of the little ivy-grown window, taking charge of the poultry. “They’ll feed ’em different, maybe,” she thought; “and they won’t get half the eggs, I know they won’t.” How hard it would be, too, to leave the faces she had known from childhood, all so familiar, and some of them so dear: not human faces alone, but all sorts of kind and friendly ones, belonging to the dumb animals, as she called them. 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. How hard it had been to leave it, and now it made her almost as sad to think of going away from the farm.

But then—there was the money, and although Mrs Leigh said nothing in favour of her going to this new place, Lilac had a feeling that she really wished it, and would be disappointed if she gave it up. Everyone said it was such a chance!

It was not altogether a fancy on Lilac’s part that everyone at the farm looked at her kindly just now, for the idea of losing her made them suddenly conscious that she would be very much missed. Mrs Greenways watched her with anxiety, and there was a new softness in her way of speaking; her old friends, Molly and Ben, were eager in showing their goodwill, and Agnetta, in spite of the approaching excitement of Bella’s wedding, found time to enquire many times during the day if Lilac “had made up her mind.”

“Of course you meant to go from the first,” she said at length. “Well, I don’t blame you, but you might ’a said so to an old friend like me.”

The only person at the farm who was sincerely indifferent to Lilac’s choice was Bella.

“It won’t make any matter to me whether you’re here or there,” she said candidly; “but there’s no doubt it’ll make a difference to Ma. There’s some as would call it demeaning to go out to service, but I don’t look at it like that. Of course if it was me or Agnetta it wouldn’t be thought of; but I agree with Pa that it’s right you should choose for yourself.”

So no one helped Lilac, and the days passed and the last one came, while she was still as far as ever from deciding. Escaping from the chatter and noises inside the house she went out towards evening into the garden for a little peace and quietness. 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.

During this past week Peter as well as Lilac had been turning things over a great deal in his mind. Not that he was troubled by uncertainty, for he felt sure from the first that she would go away from the farm. And it was best she should. From outward ill-treatment he could have defended her: he was strong in the arm, but with his tongue he was weaker than a child. Many a time he had sat in silence when hard or unkind speeches had been cast at her, but none the less he had felt it sorely. After the concert, when she had sung as pretty as a bird, how they had flouted her. It was a hard thing surely, and it was best she should go away to folks as would value her better. But he felt also that he must tell her he was sorry. That was a trial and a difficulty. How should he frame it? Though he could talk more easily to Lilac than anyone else in the world, speech was still terribly hard, and when he suddenly came upon her this evening his first instinct was to turn and go back. Sober, however, pricked his ears and ran forward when he saw a friend, and this example encouraged Peter.

“As like as not,” he said to himself, “I shall say summat quite different the minute I begin, but I’ll have a try at it;” so he went on.

There was a touch of frost in the air, and the few remaining leaves, so few that you could count them, were falling every minute or so gently from the trees. A scarlet one from the cherry tree overhead had dropped into Lilac’s lap, and lay there, a bright red spot on her white pinafore. As Peter’s eye fell on it it occurred to him to say gruffly: “The leaves is nearly all gone.”

“Pretty nigh,” said Lilac, looking up into the bare branches of the cherry tree. “We’ll soon have winter now.”

There was silence. Peter took off his hat and rubbed his forehead with his coat sleeve.

“There’s lots will be sorry when you go,” he burst out suddenly. “The beasts’ll miss you above a bit.”

Lilac did not answer. She saw that he wanted to say something more, and knew that it was best not to confuse his mind by remarks.

“Not but what,” he went on, “you’re in the right. Why should you work for nothing here and get no thanks? You’re worth your wages, and there you’ll get ’em. There’s justice in that. Only—the farm’ll be different.”

“There’s only the dairy,” said Lilac. “Someone else’ll have to do that if I go. And I should miss the beasts too.”

She put her hand on Sober’s rough head as he sat by her.

“It’s a queer thing,” said Peter after another pause, “what a lot I get in my head sometimes and yet I can’t speak it out. You remember about the brownie, and me saying the farm was pleasanter and that? Well, what I want to say now is, that when you’re gone all that’ll be gone—mostly. It’ll be like winter after summer. Anyone as could use language could say a deal about that, but I can’t. I don’t want you to stay, but I’ve had it in my mind to tell you that I shall miss you as well as the beasts—above a bit. That’s all.”

Sober now seemed to think he must add something to his master’s speech, for he raised one paw, placed it on Lilac’s knee, and gazed with a sort of solemn entreaty into her face. She knew at once what he wanted, for though he could not “use language” any more than Peter, he was quite able to make his meaning clear. In the course of many years’ faithful attention to business he had become rheumatic, and this paw, in particular was swollen and stiff at the joint. Lilac had found that it gave him ease to rub it, and Sober had got into the habit of calling her attention to it in this way at all times and seasons. Now as she took it in her hand and looked into his wise affectionate eyes, it suddenly struck her that here were two people who would really miss her, and want her if she were far away. No one would rub Sober’s paw, no one would take much notice of her other dumb friend, Peter. She could not leave them. She placed the dog’s foot gently on the ground and stood up.

“I’m not going away,” she said, “I’m going to bide. And I shall go straight in and tell Aunt, and then it’ll be settled.”

Indoors, meanwhile, the same subject had been discussed between different people. In the living room, where tea was ready on the table, Mrs Greenways and her two daughters waited the coming of the farmer, Agnetta eyeing a pot of her favourite strawberry jam rather impatiently, and Bella, tired with her stitching, leaning languidly back in her chair with folded arms.

“Lilac ain’t said nothing to either of you, I s’pose?” began Mrs Greenways.

“I know she means to go, though,” said Agnetta.

“Well, I must look about for a girl for the dairy, I s’pose,” said Mrs Greenways sadly. “I won’t give it to Molly again. And a nice set they are, giggling flighty things with nothing but their ribbons and their sweethearts in their heads.”

“Lor’! Ma, don’t fret,” said Bella consolingly; “you got along without Lilac before, and you’ll get along without her again.”

“I shan’t ever replace her,” continued her mother in the same dejected voice; “she doesn’t care for ribbons, and she’s not old enough for sweethearts. I do think it’s not acting right of Mrs Leigh to go and entice her away.”

“If here isn’t Mr Snell coming in alonger Pa,” said Agnetta, craning her neck to see out of the window. “He’s sure to stay to tea.” She immediately drew her chair up to the table and helped herself largely to jam.

“And of all evenings in the week I wish he hadn’t chosen this,” said Mrs Greenways. “Poking and meddling in other folks’ concerns. Now mind this, girls,—don’t you let on as if I wanted to keep Lilac, or was sorry she’s going. Do you hear?”

It did not at first appear, however, that this warning was necessary, for Joshua said no word of Lilac or her affairs; he seemed fully occupied in drinking a great deal of tea and discussing the events of the neighbourhood with the farmer, and it was not till the end of his meal that he looked round the table enquiringly, and asked the dreaded question.

“And what’s Lilac settled to do about going?”

“You know as much about that as we do, Mr Snell,” replied Mrs Greenways loftily.

“There’s no doubt,” continued the cobbler, fixing his eye upon her, “as how Mrs Leigh’s friend is going to get a prize in Lilac White. She’s only a child, as you once said, ma’am, but I know what her upbringing was: ‘As the twig is bent, the tree’s inclined’. There’s the making of a thorough good servant in her. Well worth her wages she’ll be.”

“She’s been worth more to us already than ever I knew of, or counted on, till lately,” put in the farmer. “Just now, I met Benson, and says he: ‘You’re losing your dairymaid by what I hear, and I can but wish you as good a one.’”

“That’s not so easy,” said Joshua, shaking his head. “Good workers don’t grow on every bush. It’s a pity, too, just when your butter was getting back its name.”

“I’d half a mind,” said the farmer, “to offer the child wages to stop, but then I thought it wouldn’t be acting fair. She ought to have the chance of bettering herself in a place like that. If she goes she’s bound to rise, and if she stays she won’t, for I can’t afford to give her much.”

“And what’s your opinion, ma’am?” asked Joshua politely of Mrs Greenways.

“Oh, it isn’t worth hearing, Mr Snell,” she replied with a bitter laugh; “its too old-fashioned for these days. I should ’a thought Lilac owed summat to us, but my husband don’t seem to take no count of that at all. Not that it matters to me.”

As she spoke, with the colour rising in her face and a voice very near tears, the door opened and Lilac came quickly in. The conversation stopped suddenly, all eyes were fixed on her; perhaps never since she had been Queen had her presence caused so much attention: even Agnetta paused in her repast, and looked curiously round to see what she would do or say.

Without giving a glance at anyone else in the room, Lilac walked straight up to where Mrs Greenways sat at the head of the table:

“Aunt,” she said rather breathlessly, “I’ve come to say as I’ve made up my mind.”

Mrs Greenways straightened herself to receive the blow. She knew what was coming, and it was hard to be humiliated in the presence of the cobbler, yet she would put a brave face upon it. With a great effort she managed to say carelessly:

“It don’t matter just now, Lilac. Sit down and get your tea.”

But Mr Greenways quite spoilt the effect of this speech.

“No, no,” he called out. “Let her speak. Let’s hear what she’s got to say. Here’s Mr Snell’d like to hear it too. Speak out, Lilac.”

Thus encouraged, Lilac turned a little towards her uncle and Joshua.

“I’ve made up my mind as I’d rather bide here, please,” she said.

The teapot fell from Mrs Greenways’ hands with such a crash on the tray that all the cups rattled, the air of indifference which she had struggled to keep up vanished, her whole face softened, and as she looked at the modest little figure standing at her side tears of relief came into her eyes. Uncle Joshua and her old feelings of jealousy and pride were forgotten for the moment as she laid her broad hand kindly on the child’s shoulder:

“You’re a good gal, Lilac, and you shan’t repent your choice,” she said; “take my word, you shan’t.”

“And that’s your own will, is it, Lilac?” said her uncle. “And you’ve thought it well over, and you won’t want to be altering it again?”

“No, Uncle,” said Lilac. “I’m quite sure now.” Her aunt’s kind manner made her feel more firmly settled than before.

“It’s a harassing thing is a choice,” said Mr Greenways. “I know what it is myself with the roots and seeds. Well, I won’t deny that I’m glad you’re going to stop, but I hope you’ve done the best for yourself, my maid.”

“Lor’, Greenways, don’t worry the child,” interrupted his wife, who had recovered her usual manner. “She knows her own mind, and I’m glad she’s shown so much sense. You sit down and get your tea, Lilac, and let’s be comfortable and no more about it.”

Lilac slipped into the empty place between the cobbler and Agnetta, rather abashed at so much notice. Agnetta pushed the pot of jam towards her.

“I’m glad you’re going to stop,” she said. “Have some jam.”

Joshua had not spoken since Lilac’s entrance, but Mrs Greenways, eyeing him nervously, felt sure he was preparing to “preachify.” She went on talking very fast and loud in the hope of checking this eloquence, but in vain; Joshua, after a few short coughs, stood upright and looked round the table.

“Friends,” he said, “I knew Lilac’s mother well, and I call to mind this evening what she often said to me: ‘I want my child to grow up self-respecting and independent. I want to teach her to stand alone and not to be a burden on anyone.’ And then, poor soul, she died sudden, and the child was left on your hands. And she couldn’t but be a burden at first, seeing how young she was and how little she knew. And now look at it! How it’s all changed. ’Tain’t long ago, and she isn’t much bigger to speak of, and yet she’s got to be something as you value and don’t want to part with. 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. Because for why? It’s her mother’s toil and trouble finding their fruit; we oughtn’t to forget that. When folks are dead and gone it’s hard on ’em not to call to mind what we owe ’em. They sowed and we reap. Lilac’s come to be what she is because her mother was what she was, and I expect Mary White’s proud and pleased enough to see how her child’s valued this day. And so I wish the farm luck, and all of you luck, and we’ll all be glad to think as we’re not going to lose our little bit of White Lilac as is growing up amongst us.”

Lilac’s eyes had been fixed shyly on her plate. It was like being Queen a second time to have everyone looking at her and talking of her. As Joshua finished there was a sound at the door of gruff assent, and she looked round. It came from Peter, who stood there with all his features stretched into a wide smile of pleasure.

“They’re all glad I’m going to bide,” she said to herself, “and so am I.”