White Lilac | Page 6

Amy Catherine Walton
basket with sudden energy, "I
shouldn't take her up myself; I'm goin' that way, and she's a slow
traveller."
"An' then Dan'l can go straight up home with me," said Mrs Wishing,
"and we can drop in as we pass an' see Mrs White, poor soul. She
hadn't ought to be alone."

Before nightfall everyone knew the sad tidings. James White had been
shot by poachers, and Daniel Wishing had found him lying dead in the
woods.
As the days went on, the excitement which stirred the whole village
increased rather than lessened, for not even the oldest inhabitant could
remember such a tragical event. Apart from the sadness of it, and the
desolate condition of the widow, poor Jem's many virtues made it
impressive and lamentable. Everyone had something to say in his
praise, no one remembered anything but good about him; he was a
brave chap, and one of the right sort, said the men, when they talked of
it in the public-house; he was a good husband, said the women, steady
and sober, fond of his wife, a pattern to others. They shook their heads
and sighed mournfully; it was strange as well as pitiful that Jem White
should a been took. "There might a been some as we could mention as
wouldn't a been so much missed."
Then came the funeral; the bunch of white lilac, still fresh, which he
had brought from Cuddingham, was put on Jem's newly-made grave,
and his widow, passing silently through the people gathered in the
churchyard, toiled patiently back to her lonely home.
They watched the solitary figure as it showed black against the steep
chalky road in the distance.
"Yon's an afflicted woman," said one, "for all she carries herself so
high under it."
"She's the only widder among all the Whites hereabouts," remarked
Mrs Pinhorn. "We needn't call her `Mrs White on the hill' no longer,
poor soul."
"It's a mercy she's got the child," said another neighbour, "if the Lord
spares it to her."
"The christening's to be on Sunday," added a third. "I do wonder if
she'll call it that outlandish name now."

There was not much time to wonder, for Sunday soon came, and the
Widow White, as she was to be called henceforth, was at the church,
stern, sad, and calm, with her child in her arms. It was an April
morning, breezy and soft; the uncertain sunshine darted hither and
thither, now touching the newly turned earth of Jem's grave, and now
peering through the church window to rest on the tiny face of his little
daughter in the rector's arms at the font. All the village had come to see,
for this christening was felt to be one of more than common interest,
and while the service went on there was not one inattentive ear.
Foremost stood Mrs Greenways, her white handkerchief displayed for
immediate use, and the expression in her face struggling between real
compassion and an eager desire to lose nothing that was passing;
presently she craned her neck forward a little, for an important point
was reached--
"Name this child," said the rector.
There was such deep silence in the church that the lowest whisper
would have been audible, and Mrs Leigh's voice was heard distinctly in
the farthest corner, when she answered "Lilac."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Not that it matters," said Mrs Greenways on her way home afterwards,
"what they call the poor little thing--Lilac White, or White Lilac, or
what you will, for she'll never rear it, never. It'll follow its father before
we're any of us much older. You mark my words, Greenways: I'm not
the woman to discourage Mary White by naming it to her now she's so
deep in trouble, but you mark my words, she'll never rear that child."
CHAPTER TWO.
THE COUSINS.
"For the apparel oft proclaims the man."--Shakespeare.
But Mrs Greenways was wrong. Twelve more springs came and went,

cold winds blew round the cottage on the hill, winter snow covered it,
summer sun blazed down on its unsheltered roof, but the small blossom
within grew and flourished. A weak tender-looking little plant at first,
but gathering strength with the years until it became hardy and bold, fit
to face rough weather as well as to smile in the sunshine.
It was twelve years since James White's death, twelve years since he
had brought the bunch of lilac from Cuddingham which had given his
little daughter her name--that name which had once sounded so
strangely in Mrs White's ears. It had come to mean so much to her now,
so many memories of the past, so much sweetness in the present, that
she would not have changed it for the world, and indeed no one
questioned its fitness, for as time went on it seemed to
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