Part 6 (1/2)

Gradually, as she remembered this, she ceased crying altogether, and began to move about the room to prepare the tea, a business to which she was well used, for she had always considered it an honour to get Uncle Joshua's tea and make toast for him. The kettle already hung on its chain over the fire, and gave out a gentle simmering sound; by the time the toast was ready the water would boil. Lilac got the bread from the corner cupboard and cut some stout slices. Uncle liked his toast thick.

Then she knelt on the hearth, and s.h.i.+elding her face with one hand chose out the fiercest red hollows of the fire. It was an anxious process, needing the greatest attention; for Lilac prided herself on her toast, and it was a matter of deep importance that it should be a fine even brown all over--neither burnt, nor smoked, nor the least blackened.

While she was making it she was happy again, and quite unconscious of the fringe, for the first time since she had felt Agnetta's cold scissors on her brow.

It was soon quite ready on a plate on the hearth, so that it might keep hot. Uncle Joshua was ready also, for he came in just then from his shed, carrying his completed job in his hand: a pair of huge hobnailed boots, which he placed gently on the ground as though they were brittle and must be handled with care.

”Them's Peter Greenways' boots,” he said, looking at them with some triumph, ”and a good piece of work they be!”

It was a great relief to Lilac that neither then nor during the meal did Uncle Joshua look at her with surprise, or appear to notice that there was anything different about her. Everything went on just as usual, just as it had so often done before. She sat on one side of the table and poured out the tea, and Uncle Joshua in his high-backed elbow chair on the other, with his red-and-white handkerchief over his knees, his spectacles pushed up on his forehead, and a well-b.u.t.tered slice of toast in his hand. He never talked much during his meals; partly because he was used to having them alone, and partly because he liked to enjoy one thing at a time thoroughly. He was fond of talking and he was fond of eating, and he would not spoil both by trying to do them together. So to-night, as usual, he drank endless cups of tea in almost perfect silence, and at last Lilac began to wish he would stop, for although she feared she yet longed for his opinion. She felt more able to face it now that she had eaten something, for without knowing it she had been hungry as well as miserable, and had quite forgotten that she had had no dinner. She watched Uncle Joshua nervously. Would he ask for more tea.

No. He wiped his mouth with the red handkerchief, looked straight at Lilac, and suddenly spoke:

”And how's the picture going forrard then?”

After this question it was easy to tell the whole story, from its beginning to its unlucky end. During its progress the cobbler listened with the deepest attention, gave now a nod, and now a shake of the head or a muttered ”Humph!” and when it was finished he fingered his cheek thoughtfully, and said:

”And so he wouldn't paint you--eh? and Mother was angry?”

”She's dreadful angry,” sighed Lilac.

”Did you think it 'ud please her, now?” asked Uncle Joshua.

”N-no,” answered Lilac hesitatingly; ”but I never thought as how she'd make so much fuss. And after all no one don't like it. Do you think as how it looks _very_ bad, Uncle?”

The cobbler put his spectacles carefully straight and studied Lilac's face with earnest attention. ”What I consider is this here,” he said as he finished his examination and leant back in his chair. ”It makes you look like lots of other little gells, that's what it does. Not so much like White Lilac as you used to. I liked it best as it wur afore.”

”Peter, he said that too,” said Lilac. ”No one likes it except Agnetta.”

”Ah! And what made Agnetta and all of 'em cut their hair that way?”

asked Uncle Joshua.

”Because Gusta Greenways told Bella as how all the ladies in London did it,” answered Lilac simply.

”That's where it is,” said Uncle Joshua. ”My little maid, there's things as is fitting and there's things as isn't fitting. Perhaps it's fitting for London ladies to wear their hair so. Very well, then let them do it. But why should you and Agnetta and the rest copy 'em?

You're not ladies. You're country girls with honest work to do, and proud you ought to be of it. As proud every bit as the grandest lady as ever was, who never put her hand to a useful thing in her life. I'm not saying you're better than her. She's got her own place, an' her own lessons to learn, an' she's got to do the best she can with her life.

But you're different, because your life's different, an' you'll never look like her whatever you put on your outside. If a thing isn't fit for what it's intended, it'll never look well. Now, here's Peter's boots--I call 'em handsome.”

He lifted one of them as he spoke and put it on the table, where it seemed to take up a great deal of room. Lilac looked at it with a puzzled air; she saw nothing handsome in it. It was enormously thick and deeply wrinkled across the toes, which were turned upwards as though with many and many a weary tramp.

”I call 'em handsome,” pursued Joshua. ”Because for why? Because they're fit for ploughin' in the stiffest soil. Because they'll keep out wet and never give in the seams. They're fit for what they're meant to do. But now you just fancy,” he went on, raising one finger, ”as how I'd made 'em of s.h.i.+ny leather, and put paper soles to 'em, and pointed tips to the toes. How'd they look in a ploughed field or a muddy lane?

Or s'pose Peter he went and capered about in these 'ere on a velvet carpet an' tried to dance. How'd he look?”

The idea of the loutish Peter capering anywhere, least of all on a velvet carpet, made Lilac smile in spite of Uncle Joshua's great gravity.

”Why, he'd look silly,” he continued; ”as silly as a country girl, who's got to scrub an' wash an' make the b.u.t.ter, dressed out in silks an'

fandangoes. She ought to be too proud of being what she is, to try and look like what she isn't. Give me down that big brown book yonder an'

I'll read you something fine about that.”