In spite of soberness and gravity, Lilac felt not a little envious the next day when Mr Buckle drove up in his high gig to fetch her cousins to the fête. She could hear the exclamations of surprise and admiration which fell from Mrs Greenways as they appeared ready to start.
“Well,” she said with uplifted hands, “you do know how to give your things a bit of style. That I will say.”
Bella had spent days of toil in preparing for this occasion, and the result was now so perfect in her eyes that it was well worth the labour. The silk skirt crackled and rustled and glistened with every movement; the new hat was perched on her head with all its ribbons and flowers nodding. She was now engaged in painfully forcing on a pair of lemon-coloured gloves, but suddenly there was the sound of a crack, and her smile changed to a look of dismay.
“There!” she exclaimed, “if it hasn’t gone, right across the thumb.”
“Lor’, what a pity,” said her mother. “Well, you can’t stop to mend it; you must keep one hand closed, and it’ll never show.”
Agnetta now appeared. She was dressed in the Sunday blue, with Bella’s silver locket round her neck and a bangle on her wrist. But the glory of her attire was the new parasol; it was so large and was trimmed with such a wealth of cotton lace, that the eye was at once attracted to it, and in fact when she bore it aloft her short square figure walking along beneath it became quite a secondary object.
Lilac watched the departure from the dairy window, which, overgrown with creepers, made a dark frame for the brightly-coloured picture. There was Mr Buckle, a young farmer of the neighbourhood, in a light-grey suit with a blue satin tie and a rose in his buttonhole. There was Bella, her face covered with self-satisfied smiles, mounting to his side. There was Agnetta carrying the new parasol high in the air with all its lace fluttering. How gay and happy they all looked! Mrs Greenways stood nodding at the window. She had meant to go out to the gate, but Bella had checked her. “Lor’, Ma,” she said, “don’t you come out with that great apron on—you’re a perfect guy.”
When the start was really made, and her cousins were whirled off to the unknown delights of Lenham, leaving only a cloud of dust behind them, Lilac breathed a little sigh. The sun was so bright, the breeze blew so softly, the sky was so blue—it was the very day for a holiday. She would have liked to go too, instead of having a hard day’s work before her.
“Where’s Lilac?” called out Mrs Greenways in her high-pitched worried voice. “What on earth’s got that child? Here’s everything to do and no one to do it. Ah! there you are,” as Lilac ran out from the dairy. “Now, you haven’t got no time to moon about to-day. You must stir yourself and help all you can.”
“Bees is swarmin’!” said Ben, thrusting his head in at the kitchen door, and immediately disappearing again.