Orange Lily: Chapter II

“A country fellow at the pleugh,

His acre’s till’d, he’s right eneugh;

A country girl at her wheel,

Her dizzen’s done, she’s unco weel;

But gentlemen, an’ ladies warst,

Wi’ ev’ndown want o’ wark are curst.

· · · · · · · · · ·

Their days insipid, dull, and tasteless,

Their nights unquiet, lang, an’ restless.”

Burns.

“And it is not impossible that, amidst the infinite disorders of the world, there may be exceptions to the happiness of virtue, even with regard to those persons whose course of life, from their youth up, has been blameless.”—Analogy of Religion.

Miss Alice and Miss Edith Alexander lived up at the Castle, that crowned the woods beyond Ballyboly. They were gentle, middle-aged, twin ladies, in whom the thought had begun to glimmer that if a woman has neither husband nor family she should search out some work on which to expend the natural abilities for good God gave her, or these, for want of being used, will likely sour; so they gently strove to make all the poor in Ballyboly happy.

But, having lingered through many winters, so to say, with their toes on a fender, and many summers sat shading their complexions in the Castle garden, they could not nowadays be energetic even in God’s service. Slowly they would walk down together into Ballyboly village, that consisted of a handful of cottages and three public-houses; would visit, because God’s word bade them, the sick and widowed, feeling heavy-hearted for days after the sight of such sorrow, not knowing what comfort to give. They would see sores and skin-diseases displayed without flinching, though the poor ladies inwardly felt very sick; would murmur with painful effort a few words of sympathy, mourning because they could say no better; then with some relief give money, and wearily go back to the Castle to sip their afternoon tea, wishing ruefully they could like better this “doing good,” in which yet, because they believed it to be their duty, they steadily continued to persevere.

Folk say there is a mysterious connection between twins, bodily and spiritual; it seemed so with these, they were so much alike. Each had delicate health and little spirits. Neither had ever known the strong joy of living a full life; either had felt, as it were, half of the other. In youth both gentle souls had gone out together into society; in middle age they were still together, but living lonely at the Castle, more fearful, more tender-minded; recalling their past life in the gay world at moments with a sort of frightened pleasure, as might two simple country souls who, having spent a summer’s day in the noise and heat and hurlyburly of a great town, congratulate themselves at eventide on having escaped its temptations—secretly ashamed that they enjoyed seeing a little of its wickedness, but feeling that now they, too, have eaten fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

All their relations were dead, except a wild young step-brother in London. They kept the old house warmed till he should marry and come back; then they meant to leave it together. Their lives were like a gray November sky from its dawn, towards afternoon, God be thanked, to be brightened in the West by a band of yellow light, deepening and broadening till the sun set; but not yet.

Life was no enjoyment to them. They felt of no use in it; yet dreaded death for its physical pain and the awful possibilities of the after-life. The more this great mystery pressed on them the unhappier they grew; then, having all thoughts in common, sought for comfort in their religion with feeble crying and groping—but at first found no light in the darkness. Yet, having read that faith without works is void, they sought to do good works with all their weak powers in the parish; but many a night literally watered their couch with tears because they believed they had not got the faith “necessary to salvation;” because they believed they did not love their Lord God, nor their poor neighbors. They knew that they would gladly suffer hunger or thirst, heat or cold, to do the latter a kindness; “but that is not love,” they said. It was because simply they could not bear not to do so, even to their enemies. So they bewailed their own hard-heartedness, and examined themselves continually with doubts and torments. Meanwhile, the poor often blessed them behind their backs for their Christian love. Verily, I think these were wisest.

The sisters struggled on thus, doing good deeds and reading religious books, vaguely hoping thereby, if might be, to save themselves; an unchristian idea (but even that they thought this was not clear to their own minds). But sorest-troubled were they thinking they grew luke-warmer, in charity cold-hearted, till their consciences became a daily torture, hourly examined, hourly doubted. Then, one day, one read this passage in good Bishop Butler’s “Analogy of Religion”:

“Let a man set himself to attend to, inquire out, and relieve distressed persons, and he cannot but grow less and less sensibly affected with the various miseries of life, with which he must become acquainted; when yet, at the same time, benevolence considered not as a passion, but as a practical principle of action, will strengthen; and whilst he passively compassionates the distressed less, he will acquire a greater aptitude actively to assist and befriend them.”

She softly showed this to her sister, who sat down beside her to study it; and after a while they looked up in each other’s faces and felt somewhat comforted. They had the most delicate respect for the poor, as poor. They almost envied them, thinking, “How hard it will be for us rich to enter into the kingdom of heaven—easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye.” And, if they entered an untidy house with dirty children and a cross mother, they could sooner have washed the floor on their knees than have taken advantage of their superior station to reprove her, thinking only, “Poor soul! She gets on somehow—in her place we should have lain down and died. Very likely she will sit high above us in the kingdom of heaven.”

Unhappily, from their having been unaccustomed to going among the peasants in early life, poor folk often could not understand their excessive timidity and reserve, and thought these coldness and pride. And more than one woman, seeing them gather their silken skirts together on sitting down in her cottage, felt huffed, supposing they dreaded dirtying their gowns. They would have cried at being so wronged had they known it; the feeling that prompted them having been shame at wearing rich dresses whilst their sisters were in rags. “Yet is it not our duty to keep up trade?” the poor ladies asked each other, bewildered. However, the time came when the Ballyboly people got to understand them and feel protectingly towards them, even tenderly. It was almost laughable to see how their natural positions became reversed; yet pitiful too.

The Misses Alexander often visited Ballyboly school-house, and tried to lure thither the ragged truants about the lanes, by saying “how nice it was” in that stuffy and unenticing room; not to mention the bit of play-ground, all mud in winter and dust in summer. But indeed the Ballyboly children needed little pressing. What with their mingled Scotch and Irish breeding, they were as sharp as needles to learn; and some of them, like Lily, would roar lustily if kept from “schuil.” (This, however, involving potato-picking in wet plough fields or such-like work, unpleasing to the youthful mind, is not to be so much wondered at.) And then the playground supplied mud-pies in winter and a grand marbles-court in summer, thick dust being just the thing to trace rings in.

For weeks and weeks honest little Lily, who tramped most praiseworthily to her lessons, tried to persuade vulgar Tommy “Cowltert” to come too.

“It was ‘hooray, boys!’ the day she got him to go,” said her father in Ballyboly dialect. “She was quare and proud!”

Likewise, finding Tom’s religious instruction neglected, she took that also in hand, and asked him every morning carefully, “Did ye say your prayers last night?” and once or twice, at first, when Tom said “No,” was so bitterly grieved that he repented; and this became a daily attention on her part of which Tom resented any neglect.

For the first week at school Lily nodded at Tom encouragingly; then, one fine day, her under-lip lengthened horribly, and her face would have frightened a bachelor, such crying preparations being alarming to look at—for “Tommy had got ahead of her.”

“It’s owre ocht—it’s beyant the beyants!’ she gurgled; forgetting the schoolmaster’s withering sarcasms upon “broad pronunciation, and “beyond the beyonds” being quite too tame in sound to express her sharp and bitter grief. The truth was that Tom was clever beyond most of his clever race, whilst she was only a poor tortoise in learning.

“Hould yer whisht! here’s the quality!” whispered Tom, as Miss Alice and Miss Edith entered. “I’ve a black-ball” (a hard sweetie as big as a young cannon-ball) “in my pocket; I’ve only suckit the half o’t, and I’ll bestow that upon ye.”

And, like a just reward of Providence for his generosity, up came Miss Alice to them both.

“Well, little boy, and where do you stand?” quoth she, mildly.

Tom giggled and sniggled; shuffled his muddy bare toes to the very edge of a circle painted for each class on the floor, thinking maybe he had been in a wrong position; and wished within his soul (being a vulgar boy) that the quality would not speak so softly, as if they had flour in their mouths.

“Are you at the head or bottom of your class?” chimed in Miss Edith.

“I’m at the heid!” burst from Tom, shyness suddenly overborne, and words coming in an explosion; while gentle murmurs of approval ensued from both the sisters, as from a couple of gray-clad doves.

“And how many more are in your class?” they inquired, admiringly, while Tom gazed up at them with a bold air, as who should say, “See what a good boy am I!” But no answer came from the modest youth. “How many more?” they encouragingly repeated, thinking they had found a model boy at last, and smiling down upon him.

Tom replied, sturdily, “There’s just me and a lassie.” And Lily hung her head, for she was the lassie; that particular class only boasting two small human specimens just then.
“And who is this little girl?” now asked Miss Alice, pleasantly. She had a more inquiring mind than Miss Edith.

“This is Mrs. Keag’s wee lass,” replied the schoolmistress, putting one hand under Lily’s chin and turning up her face for inspection, till her eyes goggled at the ceiling—an ordeal any of the scholars who attracted attention were playfully put through, and actually supposed to like. “Lily-yun is her proper name, but they call her Lill or Lily for short.”

“Lily!” murmured Miss Edith, who was somewhat reflective, smiling curiously on the little freckled face, and the reddish pate that, neatly combed and thick, was what is termed by proud mothers a fine head of hair. “Orange Lily, I think, would be a better name,” and she moved away to hear a class of bigger children go in turns through the curious gabble they called reading aloud. But, behind her, ensued choked giggles, sniffles, nudgings, and whispers, which, if listened to by the down-bent ear of a big person, resolved themselves into repetitions by all the children of “Or’nge Lily! Or’nge Lily!”

Poor Lily! that seemed the bitterest hour of her little life. Surpassed, laughed at, she bent her curly head over her slate; but, when the tears plumped down on it, she smeared them round with her palm, and tried to make believe it was a new way she had of cleaning out her last sum.

“Tom! Tom Coulter,” called the master.

It was Tom’s turn to read aloud, so he quickly licked his finger to turn the pages better, and uplifted his voice, as usual, in a doleful chant; never drawing breath save where there wasn’t a comma, or when he collected himself in front of a big word, like young Captain Alexander’s hunter before leaping a fence.

“Saint John tha Bap-tist was a good man an’ a; p-r-o-pro; p-h-e-t … pro-phet an’ he; pre-a-c-h-e-d-ched … pre-ched in tha wil-der-ness of Ju-de-a-an’; his meat was l-o-c-u-s-t-s—locusts an’; his r-a-i-rai-ment was a—a … ah—ah—ah! …”

“Leathern girdle,” promptly uttered poor Miss Edith, to end the torture she had undergone till Tom came at last to that stop. “And what did that mean, little boy? He wore, it, you know, instead of his coat. Come now” (encouragingly), “what was it?”

“’Twas a griddle! burst out Tom, who hated feeling nagged at.

“Well, yes. And what does that mean?”

“It means just a griddle—what folks bakes breid on!” retorted Tom, now defiant, and apparently thinking Miss Edith a fool; for that poor lady stood stock still, with her lips slightly parted, quite bewildered by the suggestion that the Baptist’s clothing consisted of a kitchen utensil like a lipless frying-pan, slung somehow about his waist. She retired discomposed, leaving explanations to the schoolmaster, and thereby rescued Miss Alice from still deeper despair. For that excellent middle-aged maiden had been ill-advised enough to assist at a display of what sums the small fry could reckon up in “mental arithmetic”; she who never could tell: If a herring and a half cost three half-pence, how many do you get for a shilling?

Breathlessly she had listened to such questions as, “A man is hired to break stones at seven pence per day. Find what that pay amounts to in the year, omitting Sundays.” Little children, who seemed mere babes to her undiscriminating eyes, gabbled fluent answers in their trebles. A biggish boy reduced 2½ to an improper fraction in a jiffy. At last Lily Keag, one of the smallest there, told rapidly how many fourths there were in thirteen apples, and fifths in six cakes, almost as soon as she was asked; and the master, turning with a bland smile, requested Miss Alice to say whether their answers had been correct or not. How the poor woman evaded that awful test by ladylike finesse; how she seized her sister’s arm, and got out of the school without betraying her ignorance, she never knew.

“But it has cured me of putting questions to them, for many a long day,” she murmured to Miss Edith, with a sigh of exhaustion, when they neared their lodge gate. And both good women felt vastly relieved that conscience would not prick them to revisit that school now, for nearly one whole restful fortnight.

Little Lily, however, after running the gauntlet of her schoolmates’ jeers, when lessons were done, crept home along their own lane in tears; and so appearing over the farmhouse threshold considerably surprised her family, with whom her good temper was a matter of course they had grown accustomed to. (Tom Coulter often mused whether it answered well to be so good-humored, like Lily, that folk “put upon her,” and were amazed if she ever showed any ill-temper like their own; for he himself found a character for naughtiness most useful, seeing his misdeeds surprised nobody.)

“She cried so sorely, ye could have heard her down at the lint-hole,” said Mistress Keag, late after supper, to her husband, who had been busy all day pulling his steeped flax-bundles out of the stagnant water-holes which they made most unsavory. And Lily had been utterly dumb as to what ailed her. Her little step-brothers had wondered at, then pitied her without effect; even the baby had howled on seeing her woful face. (The boys had been given the common work-a-day names of Hans and Henry-Thomas, it may be here remarked; but Farmer Keag had gratified his taste for the beautiful in his daughters, and the baby rejoiced in the appellation of Osilla, found, like that of Lilian, “in a book.”)

“Come to yer da, my daughter, and tell him what ails ye,” called Keag, cheerily; and lifting the little maid on his knee, he succeeded, by coaxing, in extracting from her the troubles of the day. “Called ye Orange Lily, did they? Weel, and yon’s a very purty name, I think; for isn’t it the handsomest flower that ever blows? Ye’ll be my own wee Orange Lily, and I’ll think a heap more of ye than ever I did; and every twelfth of July ye shall wear a flower of it in your breast.”

And so indeed the child ever after did; and her father’s assurances of fancying the name “above onything” not only comforted the little lass then, but made her proud of being thus known after a while. For, seeing that her father was such an enthusiastic Orangeman, and Master of the Ballyboly Lodge, the nickname first used by her teasing playfellows stuck to his child the more readily; and thenceforth she was often spoken of through all Ballyboly, where sobriquets were favorite and undying humor-ticklers, as Orange Lily.

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.