“He thinks I'm only a common girl,” she thought, and she wanted to prove she was a grand person like the “Lady of the Lake”.
Paul found his mother ready to go home. She smiled on her son. He took the great bunch of flowers. Mr. and Mrs. Leivers walked down the fields with them. The hills were golden with evening; deep in the woods showed the darkening purple of bluebells. It was everywhere perfectly stiff, save for the rustling of leaves and birds.
“But it is a beautiful place,” said Mrs. Morel.
“Yes,” answered Mr. Leivers; “it's a nice little place, if only it weren't for the rabbits. The pasture's bitten down to nothing. I dunno if ever I s'll get the rent off it.”
He clapped his hands, and the field broke into motion near the woods, brown rabbits hopping everywhere.
“Would you believe it!” exclaimed Mrs. Morel.
She and Paul went on alone together.
“Wasn't it lovely, mother?” he said quietly.
A thin moon was coming out. His heart was full of happiness till it hurt. His mother had to chatter, because she, too, wanted to cry with happiness.
“Now WOULDN'T I help that man!” she said. “WOULDN'T I see to the fowls and the young stock! And I'D learn to milk, and I'D talk with him, and I'D plan with him. My word, if I were his wife, the farm would be run, I know! But there, she hasn't the strength—she simply hasn't the strength. She ought never to have been burdened like it, you know. I'm sorry for her, and I'm sorry for him too. My word, if I'D had him, I shouldn't have thought him a bad husband! Not that she does either; and she's very lovable.”
William came home again with his sweetheart at the Whitsuntide. He had one week of his holidays then. It was beautiful weather. As a rule, William and Lily and Paul went out in the morning together for a walk. William did not talk to his beloved much, except to tell her things from his boyhood. Paul talked endlessly to both of them. They lay down, all three, in a meadow by Minton Church. On one side, by the Castle Farm, was a beautiful quivering screen of poplars. Hawthorn was dropping from the hedges; penny daisies and ragged robin were in the field, like laughter. William, a big fellow of twenty-three, thinner now and even a bit gaunt, lay back in the sunshine and dreamed, while she fingered with his hair. Paul went gathering the big daisies. She had taken off her hat; her hair was black as a horse's mane. Paul came back and threaded daisies in her jet-black hair—big spangles of white and yellow, and just a pink touch of ragged robin.
“Now you look like a young witch-woman,” the boy said to her. “Doesn't she, William?”
Lily laughed. William opened his eyes and looked at her. In his gaze was a certain baffled look of misery and fierce appreciation.
“Has he made a sight of me?” she asked, laughing down on her lover.
“That he has!” said William, smiling.
He looked at her. Her beauty seemed to hurt him. He glanced at her flower-decked head and frowned.
“You look nice enough, if that's what you want to know,” he said.
And she walked without her hat. In a little while William recovered, and was rather tender to her. Coming to a bridge, he carved her initials and his in a heart.
L. L. W. W. M.
She watched his strong, nervous hand, with its glistening hairs and freckles, as he carved, and she seemed fascinated by it.
All the time there was a feeling of sadness and warmth, and a certain tenderness in the house, whilst William and Lily were at home. But often he got irritable. She had brought, for an eight-days' stay, five dresses and six blouses.
“Oh, would you mind,” she said to Annie, “washing me these two blouses, and these things?”
And Annie stood washing when William and Lily went out the next morning. Mrs. Morel was furious. And sometimes the young man, catching a glimpse of his sweetheart's attitude towards his sister, hated her.
On Sunday morning she looked very beautiful in a dress of foulard, silky and sweeping, and blue as a jay-bird's feather, and in a large cream hat covered with many roses, mostly crimson. Nobody could admire her enough. But in the evening, when she was going out, she asked again:
“Chubby, have you got my gloves?”
“Which?” asked William.
“My new black SUEDE.”
“No.”
There was a hunt. She had lost them.
“Look here, mother,” said William, “that's the fourth pair she's lost since Christmas—at five shillings a pair!”
“You only gave me TWO of them,” she remonstrated.
And in the evening, after supper, he stood on the hearthrug whilst she sat on the sofa, and he seemed to hate her. In the afternoon he had left her whilst he went to see some old friend. She had sat looking at a book. After supper William wanted to write a letter.
“Here is your book, Lily,” said Mrs. Morel. “Would you care to go on with it for a few minutes?”
“No, thank you,” said the girl. “I will sit still.”
“But it is so dull.”
William scribbled irritably at a great rate. As he sealed the envelope he said:
“Read a book! Why, she's never read a book in her life.”
“Oh, go along!” said Mrs. Morel, cross with the exaggeration,
“It's true, mother—she hasn't,” he cried, jumping up and taking his old position on the hearthrug. “She's never read a book in her life.”
“'Er's like me,” chimed in Morel. “'Er canna see what there is i' books, ter sit borin' your nose in 'em for, nor more can I.”
“But you shouldn't say these things,” said Mrs. Morel to her son.
“But it's true, mother—she CAN'T read. What did you give her?”
“Well, I gave her a little thing of Annie Swan's. Nobody wants to read dry stuff on Sunday afternoon.”
“Well, I'll bet she didn't read ten lines of it.”
“You are mistaken,” said his mother.
All the time Lily sat miserably on the sofa. He turned to her swiftly.
“DID you read any?” he asked.
“Yes, I did,” she replied.
“How much?”
“I don't know how many pages.”
“Tell me ONE THING you read.”
She could not.
She never got beyond the second page. He read a great deal, and had a quick, active intelligence. She could understand nothing but love-making and chatter. He was accustomed to having all his thoughts sifted through his mother's mind; so, when he wanted companionship, and was asked in reply to be the billing and twittering lover, he hated his betrothed.
“You know, mother,” he said, when he was alone with her at night, “she's no idea of money, she's so wessel-brained. When she's paid, she'll suddenly buy such rot as marrons glaces, and then I have to buy her season ticket, and her extras, even her underclothing. And she wants to get married, and I think myself we might as well get married next year. But at this rate—”
“A fine mess of a marriage it would be,” replied his mother. “I should consider it again, my boy.”
“Oh, well, I've gone too far to break off now,” he said, “and so I shall get married as soon as I can.”
“Very well, my boy. If you will, you will, and there's no stopping you; but I tell you, I can't sleep when I think