White Lilac, by Amy Walton
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Mrs White had had several children before the birth of this one, but
they had all died. This makes her quite determined to make sure that
this one survives. She was telling a visitor that she thought of
calling the baby Annie, in honour of the visitor, but she had just been
saying how much she loved white lilacs, and her husband had brought a
branch of it over from a nearby village. So the visitor said, call her
Lilac White, as there were already too many Annie Whites in the village.
Unfortunately the father dies shortly after, and the mother has to bring
the child up on her own.
Now she is twelve, and a pretty child. A visiting artist asks if he may
put her in one of his pictures. Lilac goes off with her cousin Agnetta,
who believes she needs a new hair-do. Needless to say, the result is
not attractive to the artist, who now refuses to put her in the picture.
Other characters in the story are Uncle Joshua, who is a good and
well-loved man, and Peter, probably in his late teens, who is a farm
worker, well-intentioned but clumsy. A big event in the village is May
Day, and there is rivalry among the girls about which of them shall be
Queen of the May. It is Lilac. Yet that very day her mother is taken
ill and dies. She is taken to their home by a farmer and his wife, and
taught the dairymaid arts such as butter and cheese making. In those
days a girl such as Lilac would hope to be taken into domestic service
and trained up to such high levels as house-keeper or cook. Lilac has
some opportunities--will she or won't she take them up? A lovely book
that takes us back to long-gone days in the pastoral England of the
1850s. NH
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