Orange Lily: Chapter XXIV

“I gang like a ghaist, and I care na to spin.

I daurna think o’ Jamie, for that would be a sin.”

Lady Anne Lindsay.

“Meanwhile Hannah … had closed and fastened the shutters,

Spread the cloth, and lighted the lamp on the table, and placed there

Plates and cups from the dresser, the brown rye loaf, and the butter

Fresh from the dairy, and then, protecting her hand with a holder,

Took from the crane in the chimney the steaming and simmering kettle,

Poised it aloft in the air, and filled up the earthen tea-pot.”

Longfellow.

The weeks passed over, and warm, passionate June came, seeming full of present gladness and pleasant promise; a June bringing soft winds and glorious sunshine, bean-flowers and birds’ songs; such a June, farmers said, with a perfect content for a wonder! as had not been for years—if it lasted. But Orange Lily neither seemed warmed nor gladdened by it, like others. The now few days that had still to elapse before the Twelfth of July, seemed to press upon her with such a sense of shortness that she could not breathe. She saw all her family looking at her with smiling eyes, for although it was considered best not to hurry her in any way—she being so unlike other people—yet every one took it for granted that her marriage would soon take place; and she knew that, and felt forced, and at times half thought she would have preferred more open force, against which she might have cried out and relieved herself. At other times, however, she tried to be just to them and to remember how much all felt they owed to John. He—a blissful swain!—now paid daily visits and hinted with awkward pleasantries, and kindly if shame-faced smiles, of the preparations he would soon be making—for two. One thing the young woman did ask, that none of the neighbors should be told about the matter, and this she gained; her family agreeing together that, on account of her goodness, they must respect her harmless whims.

So while the warm days slipped on, and most evenings John strolled up to the farm-house, Orange Lily would sit quiet near him and stilly listen to his few remarks. At rare moments, stealing a look at him with the thought that soon she must be his wife, a sudden dislike would dart through the woman’s heart, and it would sink low. Then again she would chide herself; remember all his kindly deeds; count over his virtues in her secret mind; and almost passionately tell herself that it was ordered clearly for her that she should marry him, and therefore must be good for her!—if otherwise, some way of escape would be surely made plain. For Lill believed, as utterly as do fatalists in their predestination, that though free to use her own will, and though liable to mistakes, yet that all things must work together for her good; because the Master she served had plainly promised this, in return for her willing love. And so, feeling herself but a weak woman, with little wit, she prayed for divine guidance in this as in all other matters, imploring that she might not be suffered to sin from lack of judgment; and simply having faith without a shadow of doubt that she would be thenceforth guided. She knew she was bound to use the understanding given her to her best ability; but now, strain it as she would, she could noways decide. Her soul was troubled, her brain dazed; it seemed at times selfishness not to sacrifice her mere private wishes for the preservation of her family from social degradation; at others, a sin to force her conscience. So she waited on—patiently prepared to accept this coming change of life, as a duty—yet yearning for a sign against it.

But none came.

“Deary, deary me! but that girl’s wits seem all gone to water! Osilla, it’s changed times when you are the wisest of the lasses; but Lill, there, reminds one of a sleep-walker these days,” said Mistress Keag one day, out of many when she had likewise spoken. For her home-grown mind was lately as surprised at her hard-working step-daughter’s musings, as if she had learnt that her patron saint, King William III., was also a foreigner and Dutchman—truths that had never yet come under her observation. “It’s truth I’m telling, that she spent a right half-hour by the clock on her knees scouring and scouring out that back kitchen yesterday. And when I spoke to her, she only said, in a dazy way, ‘I like to have it clean.’ ‘Woman dear,’ I cried out at her, ‘it’s just wasteful to wash like that! Sure you’ll wear away the stanes!’”

Osilla moodily replied, with a slight superstitious fear of impending trouble,

“Ay! and she nearhand swept one of the crickets into the fire yesterday, she was brushing up the hearth so hard. By good luck I saved it, but if she had—!” (Crickets were sacred at the farm fireside, and showed their ungainly shapes safely. What evil would avenge their molestation was more than Osilla knew!—more than she wished to learn through experience, so she averred.)

“But, och! the crown of all was last night,” quoth the good wife, laughing, shouting her secret behind a sheltering hand. “She made me promise not to tell on her—but I’ll just tell you! She was lighting me in the parlor till I put my Sunday gown by; and what does she do but puts the candle in the press instead, and leaves us both in the dark! Well, well, says I, it’s easy seen you are as bad as other lasses when they’re foolish with coorting, for all you cried out so sorely against having John Gilhorn. She must be greatly taken with him now, Osilla.” And the stout body looked vastly relieved at this satisfactory explanation of her step-daughter’s behavior; her own cares seldom troubling her long, and, naturally, still less so those of other people.

“Oh, she likes him well enough,” blurted out Osilla, adding, with a touch of bitterness, “But I think she ought to like him a good heap better.” For the young sister, for the first time in her life, strongly disapproved of her elder’s ingratitude in not being ready to go down on her two knees to John Gilhorn, for offering “to bestow his fist and fortune on her.”

As for other matters in Ballyboly parish, Miss Edith up at the Castle had rallied in health during the last year or so, though Miss Alice had grown slightly feebler. It seemed as if, having been born together, they meant to go hand in hand down life’s hill and die together. The Colonel and his lady came over oftener, and in winter she gave balls and parties, and he hunted the Ballyboly harriers.

Daniel Gilhorn was making a mess of his trial at farming. His new and pleasant home by the seaside was going all to wrack and ruin, as James Keag often said, with a farmer’s grief at seeing fine land so sorely mishandled; while Danny himself was continually to be seen in the Maghrenagh public houses, and, while admired loudly as “doing things in fine style” by the still thoughtless young men around, was condemned by the elder under their breath as “going clean to the bad.”

“Verily, some dance gayly to hell, and others step sorrowfully to heaven! It’s a queer world, if a body thinks about it,” said James Keag.

“It was a very good world once, father; and there will be a very good world again,” reverently answered his daughter.

One day work was over, and the Keags were sitting down to supper in the evening cool, having been joined, as was now usual, by Big John, when one of the children called out from the door that Daniel Gilhorn was coming up “their road,” as any lane was always civilly called thereabouts. Daniel entered soon with a jaunty air, a round hat, like a gentleman’s, perched awry on his head, “as if it knew it was out of place,” thought Lill. He also wore two coats (a light one flying back loose over his other one; dear knew why one was not enough for any man—and the evening so warm too!) He had a swaggering “how-d’ye-do-clodhoppers?” manner as he greeted the company, while superciliously tapping his boots with his stick, that made the little children shrink small and the colley-dog growl from between James Keag’s legs.

The farmer himself was not over-fond now of this visitor, who, as he had slowly come to perceive, was not quite as civil as he should be to the former’s favorite daughter, his retiring, tender-minded Orange Lily; and there must be a bad drop in that man’s blood who could not abide goodness, he was wont to say. But Mistress Keag, whom Danny always blarneyed with compliments, greeted him warmly; and John gave him a labored but friendly welcome, because, as he now always observed, “He wished no man to say he bore his cousin ill-will about their grandfather’s money.”

Lily Keag, in her heart, held John should be a little more above public opinion, seeing all knew well that he thought as little of Danny as before; and she secretly distrusted the latter’s apparent responding warmth, his condescending rib-pokes, and patronizing fashion of addressing Big John nowadays, when the two met by accident.

In general, they avoided each other’s company, by common consent. “You’ll sit down and take a drop of tea with us,” cried Mrs. Keag, hospitably, preparing to press upon him big oatmeal farls and hot griddle-cake that smelt excellently. Danny smiled a disagreeable smile, and withdrew his chair from the table.

“Please excuse me—I’ve reelly no appetite.”

“Are ye ill?” asked Big John, simply, with a concerned and ready fellow-feeling in his voice, as he paused with a saucer full of scalding tea in one hand and a well-buttered farl in the other, midway to his mouth.

“He, he, he! No. But tea at this hour would make me so,” replied their guest, with much inward diversion apparently.

Both Lill and Osilla glanced meaningly at each other, for they, like other such-like lasses, had sharp noses for the smell of whisky, and avoided those men on whom it was habitual, and now they knew well enough that Danny had been in the Ballyboly public-house.

“Humph! Changed times!” growled Keag, with vast scorn of the degenerate days in which his latter years were unhappily cast; then directly addressed his guest. “I’ll hould ye now, you eat flesh-meat more than wunst a day, which was good enough for your father, decent man! and far more nor many an able man has been reared on—and should be—in these parts.”

“Ahem! “Well … simpered Danny, “I am used, I confess, to something tasty for my supper; and then there’s bacon at breakfast—”

“Bacon! Blatheration! What do ye stuff yourself like that for, man alive, and no more good work comes out of ye, for all the food ye put in ye, than your ancestors had to show.” (“The dear knows, not near the hundredth as much!”) “Now my grandmother used to tell me,” went on Keag, pushing back his chair and crossing his legs the better to lecture the young folk, as all parents except Adam must have done on the better practices of their forbears—“she used to tell me how many an early summer morning, in her young days, they shore a sheaf of oats and would put it at the back of the fire-place in the logie to dry, and then would put it again in a sack and thresh it with sticks, and grind it after that in the quern and make stirabout of the meal for that very morning’s breakfast! Ay! … she did so,” and he glanced round the circle till his eyes slowly fell upon Daniel—with an expression that bid all take that to heart and avoid sinful luxury.

Up jumped good Mistress Keag now, and brought a dish of buttered pancakes from the peat embers.

“Well, anyway you’ll taste these,” she eagerly cried. “These are what your cousin there likes; and to let out a secret, some one made them especially for himself, too.”

“I’ll hould ye, I know who,” Big John remarked; slowly turning a friendly I’ll-eat-you-boys! eye on the cakes, then smiling gratefully to his understood sweetheart.

But Lill blushed, with a pained expression, and answered quick and low,

“It was not I … it was Osilla. She always thinks of what people like.” (And yet, in general, it was she that merited such words, and not Osilla; who, though soft-hearted as wax, was still too thoughtless, and somewhat slow-witted, to think much of most folks’ wants—although her boisterousness of childish behavior had vanished.)

After some jests about the pancakes, which much resembled gibes to one ear more fastidious than the rest, Danny remarked, with a would-be careless air,

“By the way, I had a visit yesterday from Mr. Redhead.”

“Him that was church-clergyman here, and went over to Black Abbey?” asked somebody; then everybody added,

“Yon was a queer and nice man.”

“Ya-as,” said Danny; as if to be on terms of friendship with such persons of good station was now a matter of commonest occurrence with him. “Quite the gentleman! He said he had been wanting to call upon me this long time past, but could never get over—very polite of him.”

That was a falsehood all present guessed; knowing that Mr. Redhead spent too much time among the sick and poor to trouble himself with visiting a rich young farmer as his equal, who lived far from Black Abbey parish. So all were silent; while Danny, slapping his boots with his light cane, again observed, airily,

“He was pressing me very hard to know could I be induced to give up the farm … Has a friend of his own in his eye for it.”

Big John let fall his knife with a clatter. “And would ye—?” he ejaculated, staring open-mouthed.

“Well, reelly, reelly! … he was so pressing that to oblige him—I reelly hardly know, said Danny, mincingly, his vanity apparently having gone to his head of late, and much affected his weak brain. “Certainly, as he remarked, farming is not as gentlemanly an occupation as I am fitted for” (lie, number two) … “No offence to present company, he! he! he!”

“There’ll none can be taken, if none is meant,” gravely answered Keag; “and I trust heartily we are content with that station in life in the which it has pleased God to place us.”

“But what would ye do?” inquired Big John, practically.

“See life in town … There’s a friend of mine, there, has a secret for making a man rich in no time, if I become a partner; then we’ll make the money fly, eh, John?” And Danny playfully treated his cousin to a rib-poke.

“Well, if it flies—I do not see that there would be much of a gentleman left about you,” simply answered the big man.

Although the remark was plainly not meant to carry any sting, an irrepressible smile broke out on James Keag’s face, and on that of Orange Lily. Up got the guest very soon and took leave.

“Hi, hi! …” suddenly bawled Big John, from the doorway, after him. “Does the friend that wants your farm come from hereabouts?”

“No,” sneered Danny. “There are few here could afford it, I should think … He comes from a bit further than Maghrenagh, Mr. Redhead says: if you want to know.”

Big John stood puzzled and plagued-looking, scratching his head; then very heavily he followed Lill to the dairy, where she was putting up some butter for Maghrenagh market next morning. He stood silent for almost a long while, watching her, whilst she felt nervous and longed that he would but go away. During their now frequent interviews the poor young woman counterfeited no affection for John, beyond the respect and esteem she really felt for him. But it had begun to dawn upon her that he was somewhat troubled by and discontented with her too cool regard. Plainly to-night this was the case, for by and by he said—“I’m going now. Good-evenin’.”

“Good-evening,” said Orange Lily.

“Well, I must be going, he repeated emphatically, after another short pause; then—“I’m half feared at times you don’t like me very well—yet.”

“I always liked you fairly, Mr. Gilhorn.”

“Well, said John, again, with a sort of gulp of determination. I’m willing to do for you, what I’d do for noan other.”

He looked as if he fully expected some caress, or affectionate token of thanks for this weighty announcement. But the young woman only answered as if in a dream, with a cool voice and a little sigh, “Thank you kindly, John Gilhorn.”

As John went down the hill he had to remind himself by some rib-thwacks of the coming Twelfth of July as a consolation on being again disappointed of getting any sweet signs of affection from his promised bride, beforehand. And being a placid man, he fairly succeeded.

But the next day was to show what new-born thought had been in his mind, when he had made those particular inquiries of his cousin, and that obscure offer to his sweetheart. In the early morning, since the sun was shining with the promise of a full week or more of hot, almost too hot weather, all the Keag family was busied in mowing and making hay in the low marsh field. In June, still, it seemed full early for this; but since ever the farm had been his father’s, James Keag had known two crops of hay off that water-meadow, bad or good; though in some wet years the second set of cocks had stood there miserably into winter-time almost. So the men’s scythes were swishing down the meadow’s pride in swathes that were here and there thickly yellow with buttercups, or in damp parts pale-lilac with ladies-smocks; while the women in white sun-bonnets went tossing out the hay. On a sudden Mistress Keag called out—

“There is Danny Gilhorn driving in to Maghrenagh market, in his brand-new, second-hand gig.”

“It verily gives me a turn to see such a fool,” muttered her husband, pausing a moment to wipe his forehead, then went on again with his toil.

When it was late afternoon, and they were a good deal more than midway across the meadow, they heard the wheels of a gig again; but this time saw, to their amazement, John Gilhorn’s black, battered and aged “shandrydan—” in which he was carefully driving home his cousin Danny, who was plainly incapable of supporting himself.

“Tipsy!—ay, verily,” muttered Keag, as the cousins passed, John sagaciously nodding, whilst Dan wildly waved his hat. Well, now! If that doesn’t beat all!—boys-a-boys! They must be quite friends again—that is ‘newuns,’” ejaculated Mistress Keag, stopping to stare with her arms akimbo.

This gave all the family in the hayfield something to speculate about, as was agreeable, till late evening. Then only, when the meadow was all cut, and the hot weary workers were loitering by the hedge, taking a last drink of butter-milk in turns from the solitary can, John drove up again; and leaving his wise old horse to graze along the roadside, came up, evidently so full of some piece of intelligence that he could not long contain it, for already it was escaping in awkward smiles and curious contortions of his body. Being assailed with questions, he gave them, bit by bit, to understand that, going to the market in the morning, Danny, through careless driving, had smashed his own gig; whereupon John, driving by, had rescued him from his predicament. Here he nodded at them slyly, with an air implying that—for all his guileless looks—there was a world of cunning in him. And afterwards he had “stood” his cousin a glass or two in Maghrenagh.

“Ay! and bigger news nor that! … I—I—I’ll hold you all, I’ve played a queer trick on yon chap from beyond Maghrenagh.”

Hereupon Big John slapped his leg, and laughed outright; and then shook his head, as if ashamed of himself for such an ebullition of self-delight, although apparently none-the-less conscious he merited all praise for astuteness. To the renewed volley of questions that now buzzed about his ears, from all but Lill, who stood by silently, he slowly replied,

“I got round Danny … and a slow business it was, and took a good deal of whiskey … to promise me the first offer of his farm.”

An outcry of amazement came from all; then expressions of congratulation, mixed with wondering looks, for John was usually considered so prudent, and even close, in his dealings, that it was conjectured he must be getting a cheap bargain; and yet Daniel was known to be greedy enough for others’ coin, though he spent freely on himself. But John only buried his head in the tin can, hoarsely gurgling, “I’ll drink till it,” and finished the butter-milk.

Although much pressed, he would not go up to the farm, averring he had “lost his day already;” but, with a newly-confident smile, asked Lily to step just as far as the gate with him. She consented silently, and the rest discreetly trudged homewards. When the engaged sweethearts came to the gate, the young woman leant her arm on it, and Big John remarked to himself how very white her face was.

“Mr. Gilhorn, why did you do it?” she asked, with strange emotion. John smiled broadly. “I heered it slip from your tongue onst, you had had a fancy to live there since you were a wee child?”

The poor girl looked at him in a sort of dumb dismay. She could not say, “Yes, yes—but with another man; not you!” Meanwhile John went on, in half-regretful meditation.

“I’ve been turning it over in my mind a good bit past, for your sake—and it’s fine land, too! Well, well, it’s a grand bargain, but I’ll be queerly sorry to leave the ould home; and I’d do it for noan other living woman!”

“But you might repent of it. It’s not too late. O think twice of it,” she urged, with all the pained awkwardness of one to whom a proposition intended to give great pleasure is secretly hateful.

Big John looked at her with quite a downcast expression stealing over his face, like a cloud across the moon.

“It’s done now, for Danny swore he’d be off with the other man, and it was all for you I did it—just to make you like me a wee thing better.”

The young woman’s tongue was tied at that; could she tell him that the thought of thus realizing, indeed, her childish wish seemed the last straw to the burden on her meek spirit. She forced herself, poor soul, to think only of the goodness of this man whose wife she would soon be; and listened, as a debt of gratitude she owed him, to how, for once, Esau had got the better of Jacob, till the big man’s heart was uplifted again—and finally, at parting, with shyness, and many abortive attempts at making his speech he prayed to be repaid for the day’s work with a kiss.

Lill did not feel spirit enough within her to refuse him; maybe she owed her lover that much. She felt sadly and utterly vanquished now by this last proof of his affection. But, though he kissed her cheek, she seemed so still and passive that poor John could not feel as great a victor as would have been delightful; and somehow, as he drove home, he doubted whether he had not best have waited a wee while longer; for she was a saint, and such a sweetheart, of course, could not be wooed in an earthly and humanly affectionate fashion, like other women. Nevertheless, with all his reverence and almost awed admiration of her, Big John found a hankering in his foolish heart for a more vulgar display of affection, and less chill spirituality and strictness of manner, as he interpreted it in his woman divinity.

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.