John's Lily

by Eleanor C. Price

"What was the good of taking me in so, then?"

"I had a mind to see what you'd say."

"Well, but what did you say? That's what I want to know!"

"Look here, mother, you may think I'm wrong. Colonel Maxwell went on for half-an-hour or more, offering me all these fine things. I refused every one of 'em."

"You did, John? The money and all?"

"The money first and foremost. I've no right to the money, and if I had, would you and me like to be paid for sheltering that child, who's been the brightness and the blessing of our lives for four years? 'No, thank you, sir,' I says to him. 'My mother's looked on your little girl as her own, and she loves her as her own, and she'd never speak to me again if I pocketed a shilling of your money. Besides, your getting back the child was no doings of mine or hers. It belongs more to Sir Henry Smith, your friend, as brought you here to-day.' He laughed at that. Then I thanked him all the same, and I told him I wanted no change in no shape or way, and I'd no taste for emigrating, nor had you, and I wouldn't live in London on no account, nor ask you to do so, and my cottage and my old trade, which was my father's and grandfather's before me, was all I wanted in this world. Whether he thought me a mean-spirited chap, I don't know—all I know is, I want help from no man, and from him less than anybody. So, mother, there's the end, and Lily leaves you and me pretty much as she found us."

Mrs. Randal was half thankful, half disappointed. Good and gentle and refined as she was, she had not quite John's grand contempt for money and for getting on in the world. One need hardly say that she had not a covetous or an ambitious thought for herself, or that she spoke the exact truth in saying that she wished to end her days in the old cottage where all her married life had been spent. But it is possible to care not at all about worldly advantages for one's self, and yet to value them highly for those one loves; and Mrs. Randal, while John was talking of Colonel Maxwell's offers, had felt both glad and proud that her son was no longer to live a hidden life in this quiet village of Markwood. With a large sum of money to start him, with his own good capacity and steadiness and industry to carry him on, John would indeed have had a chance of raising himself and his family to a very superior position. And the world outside Markwood—so his mother thought—must be so much the better for knowing John. However, it was not to be; and Mrs. Randal, who never fretted over useless fancies, told herself that John knew best and that he had decided rightly. She understood him; she was all the prouder of him in her heart, really, because he chose to live his life independent of another man's money or help, and to work on in his own quiet way. Remembering, as she often did, the pure love and kindness in his face when he first brought in the lost baby, on that stormy summer evening four years ago, she could not help understanding that those four years of Lily's bright presence would lose half their sweetness as a happy memory, if all his unselfish tenderness was to be paid for.

Of course there was a great deal of talk in the village, among both young and old, about the departure of John's Lily, about her new-found father, and about the fine London house which was supposed to be her home. Markwood had not often such a subject for gossip. The worst of it was, that much of this gossip had to be made up on the spot, for very little information was to be dragged out of the only people who really knew anything—John, Mrs. Randal, and the Vicar. Mrs. Alfrick was particularly vexed at having missed seeing Colonel Maxwell; now that Mary was gone, she seldom got through her work on Sunday in time to go to church. She wrote off the news to Mary, however, and observed that John looked more glum and disagreeable than ever, and that his mother would tell one nothing. She also expressed deep offence that Lily had not been sent up to say good-bye to her and the children, when she was sure she had always treated that foundling child kinder than anybody, long before a living creature could have guessed that her father was a grand gentleman.

Lily was gone; her flower namesakes faded in the hot summer sun; the creamy rose-leaves dropped on the narrow paved walk under the cottage wall, where she used to gather them up so carefully. John went about his work as usual, but he neglected the garden a little—it was too silent, too sad—and he never looked out of his forge when the children were coming from school. His mother, always quiet, grew a little quieter, and watched him sometimes with eyes to which the tears sprang too readily. They seemed to think only of each other, and did not talk much of the past; one might almost have fancied that those homely walls had no history, that dead loves had never lived at all, that both Mary and Lily were forgotten.