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Updated: May 15, 2025
"Please, ma'am, I don't know," said Lilac. "I found it on the doorstep." Agnetta's wrath grew higher every moment. No one paid her any attention, and here was her insignificant cousin Lilac the centre of everyone's interest. She overheard a whisper of Miss Alice's: "She'll make far the loveliest Queen we've ever had." What could it be they admired in Lilac?
Common things were evidently vulgar. The pigs were common, Peter was common, perhaps Lilac herself was common in Agnetta's eyes. "And yet," she reflected, lifting her gaze from the yellow carpet at her feet to the flowering orchards, "the cherry blossoms and the buttercups are common too; would Agnetta call them vulgar?"
This was a longer way home for Lilac than across the fields, but she never thought of disputing Agnetta's decision, and the cousins left the orchard by another gate which led into the garden.
Agnetta's eyes were travelling slowly over her cousin's whole person, from her face down to the thick, laced boots on her feet, and back again. "I can't mek out," she said at length, "whatever it is that he wants to paint you for, and dressed like that! Why, there ain't a mossel of colour about you! Now, if you had my Sunday blue!"
"I'll never have 'em made different," she cried with a sudden flash in her eyes; "I never, never will." And then to Agnetta's great surprise she suddenly burst into tears. Agnetta stood staring at her, puzzled. She was sorry, only what had made Lilac cry just now when she had been quite calm hitherto? "Don't take on so," she ventured to say presently; "and you'll spoil your black.
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.
"If I ain't careful," answered Lilac, "the butter'd get a taste." "I'll help you a bit," said her cousin condescendingly. "I'll rinse these pans for you." Lilac was glad to have Agnetta's company, for she wanted to hear all about Bella's wedding; but Agnetta's help she was not so anxious for, because she usually had to do the work all over again.
"Whatever do you mean, Lilac White?" was Agnetta's only reply. Her slightly disapproving voice calmed Lilac's excitement a little. "This is how it was," she continued more quietly. "You know he's lodging at the `Three Bells? and he comes an' sits at the bottom of our hill an' paints all day." "Of course I know," said Agnetta.
As he spoke the head disappeared, and they heard him go clumping down the ladder again. The words fell heavily on Lilac's ears. "Best as it wur afore." Perhaps everyone would think so too. She looked dismally first at the locks of hair on the ground and then at Agnetta's unconcerned face. "Well, you've no call to mind what he says anyhow," said the latter cheerfully. "He don't know what's what."
There was no one, as Agnetta had said, "to mind." She began to understand it now, and the clearer it was the harder it was to bear. So she bowed her head on the table, amongst the black stuff in spite of Agnetta's caution, and cried on. And presently another thing, which she had not realised till now, stood out plainly before her. She was to go away to-morrow and live at Orchards Farm.
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