Orange Lily: Chapter XVI

Author: May Crommelin

Date: 1879

Source: Orange Lily

Comments: A novel set in Carrowdore, County Down, in the 1860s

“Adieu, the simple, the sincere delight—

Th’ habitual scene of hill and dale,

The rural herds, the vernal gale,

The tangled vetch’s purple bloom,

The fragrance of the bean’s perfume,

Be theirs alone who cultivate the soil,

And drink the cup of thirst, and eat the bread of toil.”

Shenstone.

“When I am far away,

Eibhlin a rúin,

Be gayest of the gay,

Eibhlin a rúin;

Too dear your happiness,

For me to wish it less—

Love has no selfishness,

Eibhlin a rúin.

“And it must be our pride,

Eibhlin a rúin,

Our trusting hearts to hide,

Eibhlin a rúin.

They wish our love to blight,

We’ll wait for Fortune’s light,

The flowers close up at night,

Eibhlin a rúin.

Davies.

Once more the orange lilies bloomed beside the door of the farmhouse on the hill. Once more it was the eve of the Twelfth of July, and sweet dusk brooded over the summer land. But there was no gladness in the girl Orange Lily’s heart, though her father was still the respected Master of Ballyboly Lodge, and though almost all the other lads and lasses in the country round were preparing gayly for the morrow’s anniversary. To her, strong and young though she was, that glorious summer—with its unusually warm days, its brilliantly starlit night-skies, through which wandered a comet—was but hot, weary weather. Each scented summer twilight was heavier with longing and loneliness than the evening before. Each dawn was dead with the sense that one human presence—whose nearness again could alone have given back to earth and sky their sweet fulness of present delights, and joyful hopes of just such gladness still in future—was passing soon from out of the little circle of her world. So soon, she had of late counted the lessening hours with heart-sickness. For the morrow’s sunrise was to see young Tom Coulter on his way to America!

Ever since the interrupted meeting between these two, on that March evening, Mistress Keag had kept, by her husband’s severe orders, a strict watch that no such scandal should recur. Yet the days had been many since; and her vigilance naturally slackened. What says the old song, written we know not how long ago, or by whom, but as true of human nature to-day as then?—

“Over the mountains,

And over the waves;

Under the fountains,

And under the graves;

Under floods that are deepest,

Which Neptune obey;

Over rocks that are steepest,

Love will find out the way.

And so, nevertheless, they had met since, though but twice or thrice, and that but for moments. It was wrong, no doubt: but this is a history of what they did, not of what they should have done.

They had a strange love-messenger; a wrinkled beldam who lived alone, and who, as an object of popular dislike, and some superstitious fear, was known by the epithet of “thon witch!” The very same whose pet duck had once been accidentally killed by the Misses Alexander’s carriage. This miserable old woman hated almost all human beings, excepting always “that decent lass o’ James Keag’s.” Many a winter Lily’s savings of scraps had kept life in her; and, though she seldom failed to grumble at the girl, she was attached to her after a strange fashion, while the latter, womanlike, liked the feeling that here was a creature utterly dependent on her. So, this July evening, the old woman crawled up the highroad, and found Lily awaiting her at the turn into the Keags’ own lane. Then she paused, panted, and resting on her stick, said slowly, with apparently much complacency—

“Yon one says … they’ll be flitting by sunrise the morrow.”

“I know! I heard!” said the girl, catching her breath; “but how do they go?”

“’Ow?—by cart till Maghrenagh; then by steam-coach.”

There was a little silence. The crone would speak no more awhile, but wheezed, pitying herself in grumbled mutterings for having come so far. Then Lily, though naturally so patient, at last clasped her two hands together and cried out—being able to wait no longer, though that was mostly wisest—

“Och! did he send no other message?”

“Ow, ay, he did that!” said the ancient messenger, apparently just bethinking herself of one, and watching the girl’s soft, eager face with the maddeningly-slow, interested gaze of some ancient folk who seem to like dimly reviewing human passions as from a long, long way off.

Lily, though good and gentle, could have shaken her; could have cried.

“He said—ay! let me see … Would you meet him the morning, at the Whinny Knowe?”

That evening, when the Keag family gathered round the supper-table in the farm-kitchen, Lily, with difficulty, made a feint of eating; that night for certain she never slept.

How hot it was in the closet she shared with Osilla, although she had set the small window-pane wide open! At times she dozed, yet seemed to hear the child’s every soft, regular breath beside her in the darkness; and each time the big clock struck outside in the kitchen, the strokes vibrated through her sleep-dazed brain with a sick pain that always grew, like that of a wretch nearing the morning of doom. All through the short hours of that sweet summer night she heard the rose-bush outside fretting on the pane, though so softly you scarce would know it stirred. Though her eyelids were wearily closed, she seemed aware when the white dawn first glimmered over the farm-fields—to know how it lightened and spread till a small red rim of sun first rose out of the sea, just above the Majempsys’ farmhouse, two miles away. Then she could wait no longer, and cautiously rising, so as not to disturb her small sister, the poor child (for, indeed, she was little more) put her head out of the wee window, and, looking, with sleep and grief-dulled eyes, abroad, felt refreshed by a tiny breeze that, blowing to her inland from over the sea, stirred the folds of her white gown and her hair. The dew lay thick on the single rose-bush outside, and sparkled wetly on the little close of red clover on that side of the house, enclosed by elder-bushes; the sunlight seemed busy hunting the shadows out of all dark corners; and—oh! but that was the time to hear what noises the small birds can make, before man is awake and up, and while the world seems all their own—what chirping, twittering, and trilling from early robin to lazier blackbird! The whole earth seemed full of gladness and joy—all but poor young Lily’s heart! Still she had done with tears, she told herself.

She dressed now with hasty, yet cautious and tidy fingers, listening anxiously to the clock’s ticks, yet taking time to tie her best white apron neatly over her common gown, and a bit of blue ribbon at her throat; and to smooth—then turn and touch yet again—
the ruddy hair that framed her innocent young face. Poor face! It looked back at her so white, with such a dull, joyless expression, from the half-foot square of looking-glass fastened against the wall!

“He’ll not think much of me this morning,” she sighed, dispraising herself.

Then, feeling like a thief, she stole into the kitchen, trembling; heard her father’s heavy snores in the parlor beyond; and, lifting the latch with faltering fingers, was out next moment in the newly-risen sun, the dew, and morning breeze.

On she glided, looking fearfully behind her, though not a soul would wake for nigh two hours yet—close by the beech-hedge whereon they dried the washing. Then with flying feet she sped across the open hill, past the cows that stopped cropping the wet grass to raise their heads wonderingly; into a coppice and along the headrig of a neighbor’s green, rustling oat-field; then through a last thorn-hedge.

Here rose a stony, uncultivated little hill, forming an angle, round which the high-road passed, and—save for a brake at the top—all overgrown with scattered gorse, whence its name of the Whinny Knowe. This brake was the tryst; and here only Lily paused, panting, but more with agitation than from her run. Then she sat down on the grass, feeling quite wicked at being out there idle at that hour, instead of being still asleep or soberly working.

A long time seemed to pass then.

She began to wonder dully to herself how she could take all so quietly this last morning. She had dreaded that its anguish would be worse than even the daily pain of weeks past, when to her useless longing to see Tom had been added her father’s averted face and utter silence, except when he was forced for appearances’ sake to speak to her. Plainly her parents had resolved that none must be the wiser for what had passed—yet all the same the farmer’s altered manner and his wife’s broad watchfulness, that her honest but unrefined nature could hardly disguise—all made the poor girl as miserable as if her love had been cried aloud with contempt and jeers down Ballyboly village.

And yet this morning, when the heart-strings that had wound themselves, all her life, round Tom’s constant presence seemed uptorn within her, and loneliness would replace that former sense, she yet could not feel—much; was only aware of being stupidly heart-sick. Once or twice she reproached herself; then again remained still, in a brainless, insensible way.

Minutes passed thus, when a fear, suddenly darting through her, roused her to consciousness of pain again. He was late, surely! All the household at home would miss, follow her! She would not see him now—and perhaps never again. Her heart began to beat once more painfully; the fear grew sharper. Creeping forward, she gazed continually at the bit of dusty road that was visible below the hill, strained her ears to catch the faintest sounds. Moments and moments passed.

Then—at last—far off! Yes, it was—the rumble of a cart.

That sound relieved her from a loving agony of suspense; thenceforth she waited with comparative calm again. Nearer and louder it sounded, strangely loud in the fresh morning stillness; at last came in sight with its three occupants. Even at that distance, she seemed to see how the old father was bent double, whether from grief or in usual apathy. And the aged aunt wept amid the household stuff they had left with her; and which she was taking to another home she had found for herself some twenty miles away, near other relations. But one young figure sprang energetically to the ground; and signing to the others that he would cross the Knowe by a short-cut common to pedestrians, gave the reins into the old man’s fingers, and came up the brae with a strong step, while the cart creaked on. The sight of the young ploughman’s broad shoulders again, and fresh ruddy face—although it being now a little downbent she could not make out its expression—seemed to console his former master’s daughter at once for all her troubles; and she rose silently to meet him.

As silently he approached to greet her, his step heavy now and face firm-set, and took the hand she simply held out with strange slowness. And yet both heard the cart rumbling on that must so soon again draw them asunder. Then Tom just said, in a hoarse, almost gruff voice, as they gazed at each other—

“Well, lass, it has come to this.” And she answered, as if her soul was dead—

“Yes.”

There was an orange lily in her breast; and, after a while, without a word, she pinned it to his coat. In as stolid a seeming manner he let her do it. And yet, under that outward calm of their self-contained race, both were feeling pain with all the power of their natures; but too much pain to cry out! At their former meetings, tears on her part, embraces on his, had relieved their emotion; now both felt too sorely hurt to stir or make a sign. They heard the cart-wheels creaking round the hill-bend now, while as yet neither had moved or spoken; then the girl said, very low—

“Tom, do you think you’ll ever come back?”

“That I can not say,” replied Tom, with the slow emphasized manner of speech of his class now intensified. “But if I am living I will come, as sure as there is a God above us.”

She answered quietly, “I’ll wait.” And the cart creaked slowly nearer.

The young ploughman turned away his eyes then from those dove-like ones that looked out of the fair girlish face with such unutterable, dumb patience into his. He made as though he were taking a last look away all round the wide expanse of level fields, and down to the sea, where the Majempsys’ farm was like a white speck set in green that sunny morn; but a haze seemed over all, and now he could see nought—nought! They heard the cart stop. At that the poor lad brushed the back of his hand heavily over his eyes with a hoarse sound like a laugh; drew the girl lo him; kissed her just once, and for the last time. Then he hastily ran down the hill on the further side, not daring to look back.

But above, Orange Lily stood immovable, gazing after the cart, that now recommenced its monotonous rumble, till it lessened and lessened to a mere dark speck still moving away. Then it passed out of sight round a corner, and she put her apron slowly up to her face—not that she was crying, but because her features were working convulsively. The peasant natures of both, transmitted through generations of toil-oppressed ancestors, seemed so used to hardship that they bowed their souls to it in silence. Yet even many others of their own class might have lamented their sad case more audibly. But Lily Keag had always been patient beyond others; while with Tom the oppression of circumstances, the thought of his inferior birth weighing on him since he had left boyhood behind, and known that he loved her, the obligatory suppression of his deep attachment, had all forced his stronger passions back into the secret keeping of his soul.

So, as he left his former playmate—afterwards the woman-child whose affection in their growing years had been all-in-all to the sisterless, motherless boy, his late young mistress, every hair of whose head he so loved, and set his face towards America, thinking, perhaps, never to see her more—Tom’s heart felt ready to burst.

“Fate had been sore and heavy on them both!”—sore and heavy!

While he so thought, the girl he thought of was passing slowly home with dragging footsteps and white, still-set face, over dewy grass, and under the unheeded, laughing sunshine and waving branches. Her nature was one that, having endured all it well could, took instinctive refuge in a dull daze of bodily and mental semi-stupor. She might never die of any grief; but she might lose her wits, if too hardly overborne.

When she reached the farm its inmates were beginning to rouse; and by force of habit she went through her morning duties dumbly. And up and up mounted the glorious sun. Oh! but it was—even then, at five o’clock—a brilliant Twelfth of July morning.

Later on, at breakfast, Lily, once looking up, saw her father’s eyes fixed with an unusual attention on her face; but next moment he withdrew them, and turned to pet the younger children with toil-roughened hands. These caresses she did not miss, since, with growing years, their affection had been mostly understood between father and daughter; yet, since March, he had hardly once looked her way, never smiled on her, and to those who knew his former silent but excessive fondness for his motherless girl this was terrible. Mistress Keag, to do her justice, had heartily tried to set matters to rights between father and daughter; although the untidy, good-humored soul had at times felt jealous of her husband’s evident pride in her orderly, prettily-behaved step-child—but she only made things worse.

“It’s well seen the daughter takes after the father for endurance and close-mindedness; they never give in,” she gave self-praise, while clattering pots and pans.

“Dear be thanked! me and my childer takes things uncommonly easily.”

Breakfast over, Lily mechanically rose and brought in from the garden-plot the finest flower she could find on her namesakes—the orange lilies. Since she could walk, she had never failed to bring her father one on this Twelfth morning; and now she offered it once more, but in silence. He took it in the same manner; then said, with an effort—

“You may as well change your mind and come with us the day; there is time still.”

For, some days ago, Lily had ventured to ask her step-mother whether she might be left at home, instead of going to the Orange meeting; a request the latter approved of, as a properly self-inflicted penance.

“No, thank ye, father,” said the girl, softly; “one of us must stay to mind the baby—and mother and Silla are quite glad to get going. They like it better than I do.”

Without another word the farmer went out. How heavily he went down the lane, she noticed; how little cheerful was his face compared with former years! The poor child wondered was she the cause, and sighed; since many days she had only sighed for herself and poor Tom.

Night came; the hot, long working-day was over. The pleasure seekers had returned, weary, all but the women’s tongues. Before the house was shut for the night, Lily slipped outside to be alone and at rest a few moments, and to cool her head. All day, without a moment’s pause, she had of necessity been busied with the others’ duties, besides her own; and now might well be tired.

She stood in the clover close, at the back side of the house. Above her head the white elder-blooms spread large and sweet unminded; unminded the soft gray moths danced up and down about her feet, and the sky’s tender gloom was brightened here and there by a star-spark, as if the little boy-angels, who long ago she had fancied lit the stars up there, considered that was enough light for a summer night. With eyes fixed in the direction of the marsh, though in the darkness it could not be seen, she was thinking of the sea, of the big steamer ploughing now through the summer waves, leaving a milky track behind it in the darkness, while on its deck, fast being hurried on to a cold distant land, far from her and Ireland, was standing, no doubt, the man of all men she had ever known in her young, narrow-bounded life—the handsomest, truest, best she ever had seen or would see in Ballyboly, or in all the parishes round. And no doubt, too—no doubt—he would be thinking of her. The girl’s heart felt bursting. Ay! he would be thinking of her, as in the words of the ancient and plaintive Irish song that she had heard sung in English long ago by her mother:

“The moon calmly sleeps on the ocean,

And tinges each white bosom’d sail,

The barque, scarcely conscious of motion,

Glides slowly before the soft gale;

How vain are the charms they discover,

My heart from its sorrows to draw,

While memory still carries me over,

To cailin beog chruite na mbo!

(To the pretty girl milking the cow)”

Poor Orange Lily! The big tears rolled slowly down her cheeks in the dusk twilight, but by and by she felt they had relieved her heart. The summer night-breeze, too, blew softly round her temples like a bath of air, and was grateful.

Suddenly a heavy hand was laid upon her shoulder. She gave a great start, and saw it was her father, who had silently approached her over the clover.

“Lass,” he said, quietly, an undercurrent of deep feeling being indicated only by the embarrassed sound and great gravity of his voice, “I’m thinking it’s near time now for you and me to make it up together.”

“I’m glad of it, father,” she replied, half choked.

“I’ve been sore and bitter against you—but I was that deeply affronted,” said he, low; and she knew he was looking away from her into the dusk and shadows, as if he could not bear to speak of this, and see her face, just because of his former great pride and trust in his child.

She murmured back—

“Father, remember he once saved my life!”

“That gives him no right to spoil it to ye now,” said the father, with terrible solemnity. “Better have left ye in the bogwater than demean ye to his level! Well, well, we’ll say no more about it!”

With a shudder the girl silently acquiesced. It was an ill revelation to her that the father on whose love she had counted always as her natural right, seeing even in his late harshness another proof of it, though a painful one, should yet prefer even the idea of her death to that of his pride being lowered with her social abasement. That was not how she loved; she had never thought before that people could love so unlike each other. But, at least, she was very thankful that her father was again reconciled to her.

Order the new paperback edition of Orange Lily which includes an introduction, footnotes and a glossary of words by Dr Philip Robinson. The book also includes the short stories The Witch of Windy Hill and An Old Maid’s Marriage.

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