The Lavender Lady
It was Easter time when the Lavender Lady first rose upon the horizon of
Lyngates. She came with the dog violets and the ground ivy and the
meadow orchises, and several other lovely purple things, at least that
was how her advent was always associated in Avelyn's mind. She took the
furnished bungalow near the church, lately vacated by the curate, and it
was rumoured in the village that she composed music and had published
poetry, and that she had come down into the country for a rest.
When Avelyn first saw her she was sitting in the flowery little garden
raised above the road. She wore a soft lavender dress and an old lace
fichu, and she had dark eyes and eyebrows, and cheeks as pink as the
China roses, and fluffy grey-white hair that gleamed like a dove's wing
as the sun shone on it. She looked such a picture as she sat there, all
unconscious of spectators, against a background of golden wallflowers
and violet aubrietias, that Avelyn was obliged just to stand still and
gaze. In that thirty seconds she fell in love with the Lavender Lady.
It was not a mere mild liking, but a sudden, romantic, absolute,
headlong falling in love. It had come all in a minute and overwhelmed
her. She crept away softly to dream dreams about the vision she had seen
in the garden. At home there were some beautiful illustrated editions of
William Morris's _Earthly Paradise_ and of Dante Gabriel Rossetti's
poems. She took them out and pored over them. The gorgeous
pre-Raphaelite pictures had always appealed to her innate artistic
sense, and set her nerves athrill with a something she could not
analyse. There was not one of them so beautiful as her Lavender Lady
among the flowers.
"She's a little like 'The Blessed Damozel', who leaned out 'from the
gold bar of heaven'," mused Avelyn. "And then again she's like
Gainsborough's picture of 'The Duchess of Devonshire'. I wonder what her
name is, and if I shall ever know her? I don't believe I'd dare to speak
to her. I'd be too shy."
For a whole week Avelyn, terribly in love, lived in a mystic world in
which the Lavender Lady, robed in the glory of the purple night and
stars, was as the central sun, and she herself revolved like a planet
round her orbit. The family could not understand why she insisted upon
choosing heliotrope for her new dress.
"It won't suit you, dear," demurred Mrs. Watson, bewildered by the
firmness of her daughter's sudden attitude.
They were sitting round the table, with three boxes of patterns from
west-end London firms spread out temptingly before them.
"You of all people in helio, Ave!" objected Daphne. "It's the one colour
you ought never to wear--you're far too much of a brunette for any
violet shades. You'd look nice in this biscuit, or this saxe blue. I
always liked you in that blue dress you had a couple of years ago."
"There's a perfectly charming stripe here," recommended Mrs. Watson.
"I want the helio, please," said Avelyn doggedly.
"But _why_ should you want helio when you know it doesn't suit you?"
stormed Daphne. "It's really only pig-headedness, because you've
happened to say so. You can't see yourself in your own dress. If you
could you'd choose another colour."
"You know nothing about it," retorted Avelyn; and matters nearly grew
warm between the two girls.
"There's no need to send the patterns back to-day," interrupted Mrs.
Watson, sweeping the whole consignment back into their boxes. "We'll
bring them out to-morrow and talk about them."
As a matter of fact she sent for the biscuit shade without consulting
Avelyn again, much to the disgust of that damsel, who consoled herself
by taking energetically to gardening, and replanting the round border in
the middle with wallflowers and purple aubrietias. It was the Easter
holidays, so she had time to dream. She made up at least six romances
about the Lavender Lady's past; some of them ended happily and some
unhappily. She could not decide which was really the more artistic. She
walked past the cottage every evening. Once she threw a bunch of violets
over the wall just to the place where the lady had been sitting. Then
she ran away frightened at her own daring. Another evening as she passed
she heard the strains of a piano and the sound of a rich, sweet
contralto voice. She stood and listened spellbound. It was a song she
had never heard before--a lovely, crooning song, like a cradle lullaby.
She would have liked to stay and listen to more, but the Vicar's wife
and daughters were coming down the road, and she fled. Somehow she did
not want to be talked to just at that moment.
On Sunday she chivied the family off to church at least ten minutes too
soon, and they sat in their pew in stately dignity while the rest of the
congregation trickled in. Avelyn, from a post of vantage near the
pillar, eyed everyone that entered with increasing disappointment. Then
her heart gave a great thump. Her Lady was coming up the aisle--not in
lavender this time, but in black and white, with a bunch of violets and
a big picture-hat trimmed with silver ribbon, and a white ostrich boa
and dainty white kid gloves. The verger was showing her to a seat in
front, actually the next pew but one, and Avelyn felt thrills running
down her spine. She was so glad the verger had selected a pew in front.
If it had been behind, she would have been absolutely obliged to
disgrace herself by turning round. After the service she managed to drop
her book, and to fumble for it long enough to delay her family for a
few moments and prevent them from leaving before the Lavender Lady. They
passed her in the churchyard. She was actually speaking to the Vicar's
eldest daughter. Avelyn decided that Barbara Holt had more than her
share of luck. At dinner-time, over the joint of roast beef, Mrs. Watson
remarked:
"That seems a sweet lady staying at the bungalow. Miss Carrington, I
hear, her name is. She comes from London, and Mrs. Holt says she's very
musical. I think I shall have to call."
Avelyn went on eating beef and potatoes with a jumping heart but outward
composure. It had not struck her that it was possible to pay social
calls on Dante Gabriel Rossetti heroines. What if she were to meet the
Lavender Lady at close quarters? Even speak to her? The idea seemed to
need preparation.
Mrs. Watson had quite made up her mind.
"Daphne and I will go on Tuesday," she said.
It was of course appropriate that Daphne, being the eldest, should go,
but Avelyn envied her all the same.
When the momentous afternoon arrived she enquired anxiously what her
sister was going to wear. It seemed vitally important that the family
should make a good impression.
"You'll put on your grey coat and skirt, won't you?" she said
beseechingly.
"I don't think I will. I really don't want to go at all," yawned
Daphne.
Not want to go! Avelyn could hardly believe it. She stared at Daphne
incredulously.
"Don't you feel well?" she asked.
"Oh yes! it isn't that, but I hate paying calls, and I promised the boys
to walk to Fulverton. Captain Harper said he'd meet us and show us a
squirrel's nest he's found. Suppose you go and call with Mother instead
of me?"
Avelyn gasped. Such unselfishness took away her breath.
"Do you really mean you'll let me go instead of you?"
"With all the pleasure in life, child, if you want to." Daphne's manner
was airy and elder-sisterly. "Of course it's nothing to me whether we
meet Captain Harper or not, only he made rather a point about it, and
perhaps it would seem--well, rude, if I let the boys go without me. He's
been very kind to David and Tony, and one doesn't like to hurt his
feelings."
Two things swept across Avelyn's bewildered consciousness: first, that
Daphne was growing up--growing up most suddenly and unmistakably; and
secondly, that she had resigned her privilege, as elder daughter, to
call on the Lavender Lady. The first would have to be considered at
leisure, in all its bearings and side issues; the second was for the
moment uppermost.
"Go and ask Mother what you're to put on," said Daphne, as if the whole
question of the exchange were settled.
It was an outwardly calm and self-possessed, but inwardly much-agitated
Avelyn who entered, in her mother's wake, into the little drawing-room
at the bungalow. One comprehensive glance took in the fact that the room
was utterly different from what it had been during the curate's
occupation. There were books and flowers, and other pretty things about.
The general tone had changed from commonplace to artistic. On the
window-sill lay a half-finished sketch of the village. There was music
on the open piano. But these details faded into secondary consideration,
for the Lavender Lady was entering, in the soft heliotrope gown, with a
sprig of wallflower pinned into the lace fichu.
Occasionally in our lives we meet with people whose whole electric
atmosphere seems to merge and blend with our own. We feel we are not so
much making a new acquaintance as picking up the lost threads of some
former soul-friendship. Avelyn experienced thrills as she shook hands.
She was far too shy to say much, but she sat and listened rapturously
while her mother and Miss Carrington did the talking. For the present it
was enough to be in the vicinity of her goddess. The maid brought in
tea. There were a dainty, open-hem-stitched Teneriffe cloth, Queen Anne
silver teapot and Apostle teaspoons, and scones and honey. A bowl of
primroses and forget-me-nots was on the table.
The half-hour's visit passed like a dream.
"You'll come and see me again, dear, won't you?" said Miss Carrington,
as she held Avelyn's hand in good-bye.
The hot colour flooded the girl's face. Her eyes shone like stars.
"Oh, may I?" she cried impulsively.
That afternoon marked an epoch. Friendship is a matter more of
temperament than of years. That the Lavender Lady was middle-aged, and
Avelyn barely sixteen, made not the slightest difference to either of
them. Each character dove-tailed comfortably into the other. Miss
Carrington had a great sympathy for girls, and she seemed to understand
Avelyn at once. As for the latter, she had utterly lost her heart. But
for the fear of making herself a nuisance she would have nearly lived at
the bungalow. She went there very often by special invitation, and spent
glorious, delightful afternoons sitting in the garden, talking about art
and books and music, and the foreign places Miss Carrington had visited.
It fascinated Avelyn to hear about Venice and Rome and Sicily and Egypt,
and made her long to go and see them for herself.
"You shall, some day, when the war's over," said the Lavender Lady
confidently.
Sometimes they would go for walks together, or Avelyn would wait with a
book while Miss Carrington sketched, or--what she loved immensely--would
sit in the twilight while her friend improvised soft dreamy music at the
piano. The little volume of poems, _Cameos_, by Lesbia Carrington, she
already knew almost by heart; the small, white-and-gold edition, with
its signed autograph, was her greatest treasure. To Avelyn it was a
most inspiring friendship, that roused dormant hopes and ideals in her
nature which promised to make rapid growth afterwards. Her Lavender Lady
proved the most delightful of confidantes. It was possible to tell her
everything. She never laughed at Avelyn's secrets, though she was merry
enough on occasion.
One evening she and Avelyn sat in the little garden, watching the red
glow of the setting sun fade away behind the dark boughs of the yew
trees. The air was heavy with the scent of flowers; from the fields came
the caw of rooks, as long flights passed homeward to roost. Avelyn
squatted on the grass, with her head against the Lavender Lady's knee,
and held her hand tight.
"Next week I shall be back at Silverside," she whispered. "I just hate
the thought of it!"
"Poor little woman!"
"It isn't as nice there as it ought to be, somehow. Things seem always
at sixes and sevens, and it's so horrid."
"What's the trouble?"
"The old school and the new school won't mix. The Silversiders look down
on the Hawthorners, and the Hawthorners resent it, of course, and just
detest the Silversiders. It's a constant bickering the whole time. I
think it's almost worse since Annie and Gladys were made prefects. It's
perfectly wretched for me, because I'm between two stools."
"How's that?"
"Well, you see, in a way I'm a boarder, but then I'm the only weekly
boarder, so the others who stay there the whole term rub it into me that
I'm not quite one of themselves. They can't forget that I used once to
go to The Hawthorns, even though it's a long time ago, and they keep
bringing it up against me as if I were a sort of traitor in their midst.
Then it's quite as awkward for me with the day girls. I like some of
them very much; they used to be old chums of mine, and I'd like to go on
being friends with them. But if I even speak to them in school, Laura or
Janet are down on me like anything, and ask me if I've forgotten I'm a
member of the Silverside League."
"What is the League, please?"
"It's a kind of blood-brotherhood among the boarders to keep up
Silverside traditions. When the day girls heard of it, they started an
'Old Hawthorners' League' in opposition."
"But surely you're all Silversiders now?"
"We are in name, but nothing else. We still feel two separate schools.
The day girls wouldn't play hockey with us in the winter. They got up a
club of their own, and wore their old school colours. They won ever so
many matches, and the Silverside Club did so badly. Adah was dreadfully
sick about it. She thought them so mean to desert."
"Perhaps they felt they wouldn't be welcome."
"That's exactly the point. Instead of pulling together, it's always
boarders versus day girls; and as for poor little me, I'm neither fish,
flesh, fowl, nor good red herring!"
The Lavender Lady smiled, and then looked thoughtful. She stroked
Avelyn's hair.
"Poor little woman!" she said again.
"I feel like Mohammed's coffin, slung between earth and heaven."
"Can't something be done to bring these rival factions into harmony?
You're one school now, and ought to work together for the common good."
"That's what Miss Thompson says, but it doesn't make any difference."
"Girls often won't listen to teachers. The movement must come from
within, not without. It seems to me, Ave, you're the one to set it in
motion."
"I?"
Avelyn turned up her face in the greatest amazement to meet the Lavender
Lady's calm eyes.
"Yes, _you_, darling! Don't you see you have an absolutely unique
opportunity? You're the only girl in the school who is in touch with
both sides. You can get at both the boarders and the day girls. The
hockey season is over, and I suppose next term you'll be starting tennis
and cricket?"
"Yes, so we shall."
"Well, suppose directly you get back to Harlingden you propose a United
League of all Silversiders to win credit for the school. You could set
about it very tactfully, and sound your principal parties first."
"_I?_ But they'd think it such cheek! A Fifth Form girl, and only a
weekly boarder."
[Illustration: AVELYN AND THE LAVENDER LADY]
"And Gideon said, 'Wherewithal shall I save Israel? I am the least in my
father's house'," quoted Miss Carrington. "On the contrary, I think it's
the chance of a lifetime. I believe you're the one girl to do it. It
would be something worth accomplishing, wouldn't it, to unite the
school?"
"Rather!"
"Is there any public occasion when you could bring forward the
suggestion?"
"Yes; there's the School Council on the first Wednesday of term. Anybody
is allowed to put things to the meeting, and votes are taken."
"You couldn't have a better opportunity. Talk in private to the girls
first, and persuade a number of them from both sides to be ready to back
you up. Then state your proposal. By the by, what are the Silverside
colours?"
"Pale-blue and navy."
"And the old Hawthorn colours?"
"Navy and pink."
"If you're wise, you'll amalgamate them, and ask Miss Thompson to let
you have new badges of pale-blue, pink, and navy. I believe it might
just make all the difference to the state of feeling."
"Perhaps you're right. But I still feel afraid--it's a big thing to
attempt, and I don't know whether I can screw up the courage. Suppose I
fail? Suppose they only laugh at me, and tell me to mind my own
business?"
"You won't fail! You mustn't _think_ failure! Make up your mind
beforehand that you're going to succeed, and that what you say will
persuade them. Oh, Ave darling, do try! It would be such a grand thing.
There are those two great streams of girls, each running its own way.
They only need a thin barrier removed to make them into one mighty
river. Some common purpose should unite them. Perhaps in their heart of
hearts they're all secretly longing for union. Who knows? Can't your
hands lead them together? You said once you'd do anything for my sake."
"So I did--and I mean it!"
"Then take up this crusade, and be a Red Cross Knight for the School
Colours!"
"For the School Colours and for you, dear Lavender Lady!" said Avelyn,
kissing the soft hand in token of her vow.