LILAC TIME

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 276, 11 February 1928, Page 5

LILAC TIME

BY

K.A.H.

Christopher Grant stopped suddenly, j with a quick catch of the breath. Hurrying along Swanston Street his eye was caught by the glory of a great mass of lilac against the sombre background of grey stone. j A street flower-seller had taken his r stand against the wall; his stock was piled in glorious confusion; a riot of spring beauty. But it was the sweet r misty purple of the lilac, so seldom 1 seen on a flower stall, that held Kit’s t eyes, and sent a stab to his heart. s The shops, the old grey stone bank, t the jostling crowd, faded from his 1 sight; he saw instead an old Gippsland garden in all its beauty, softened by the gracious light of a spring evening; saw 1 a great lilac bush, and a girl standing c in its shadow, her little face lovely in its soft, young tenderness; heard her ! eager hurrying words, “Not long Kit; you won’t stay long?” And his answer, ‘Til come back the * minute I get a foodhold, Ann. When the lilac blooms again, dear, I’ll come for you. Ann, promise me, you won’t * look at anyone else?” * A man pushed roughly against him, and the flashing picture faded; he hurried on to keep his appointment. Later, , somehow, his thoughts kept going back 1 to the past. He had forgotten, not all at once, but gradually; at first he had * had a hard struggle, then success had £ taken him by the hand, and his head 1 had been turned and his heart absorbed. * He had loved Ann, he told himself; ] he had written to her every day for a time, then twice a week, then once, i then occasionally; and now—why, it £ must be over four years since he had written to her —he had been away from the old town six years. He twisted ] restlessly in the office chair—six years. ' Ann had been 17. She’d be 23. He c wondered if she’d changed much. How lovely she had been, %nd how dear. j And his mother? When had he 1 written to her last? A knock at the door broke in on his tangled thoughts. . Young Bruce, looking a bit shy, asking \ in a hesitating way if he could get off x at five, he’d finished up his work? j Grant nodded absently, adding, “No- t thing wrong, I hope?” He liked young , Bruce. The boy flushed and said no, * but his mother was down from the J country, and he wanted to take her to a j show, adding a bit shamefacedly, “Must j be early for the cheap seats, y’know.” Grant had a flashing vision of a little old lady and the boy waiting patiently I in the chilly evening at the early doors. 1 Somehow it hurt him. “Here,” he said i abruptly, “give to your mother, 1 with my compliments,” and almost £ threw the bits of pasteboard that £ meant reserved stalls for “The Street i Singer,” at the astonished youth, who t withdrew, stammering his thanks, utterly taken aback at his chief’s gener- f osity. j It happened that Grant had intended going to the show with a friend, and £ had chanced to have the tickets in his pocket. Later he telephoned to put his •< friend off; but the little incident was £ just one more stab, coming as it did after the- sharp reminder of the past , < that the sight and scent of the lilac had given him. i “Smells are surer than sounds or * sights to make your heart-strings ‘ crack,” he muttered to himself. “Kip- , ling knew what he was talking about.” The thought of his neglect of his mother and Ann hurt him at last, and t he kicked the leg of the office table viciously. He sat, chin sunk on breast, absorbed in memories, while the even- . ing closed softly down. Suddenly his face cleared; he sprang up. “I’ll go . to-morrow,” he told himself with sudden energy, and felt strangely light- . hearted at the resolve. Six years ago he had been a young clerk, studying accountancy, and struggling for a foothold; now he was fully fledged, and establishing a good connection; he had worked hard and become selfish and self-centred. He’d meant to go back and see them all, meant to keep up writing; but somehow, after a while, he had let things slip, and had become immersed in the life of the city. Perhaps he had been a little ashamed of the farm in Gippsland. Well, he would go home to-morrow and see his mother and father. He supposed everything would be the same at the farm; years didn’t make much difference to them. His brother —would he be going on the same old round? His brother had never wanted lo be anything but a farmer. His sister had been married to a young farmer nearby—he wondered about her; he thought he remembered his mother saying something about a nephew; he must look up the letter —if he could find it. Then his thoughts flew to Ann. Was she still waiting, he wondered? He thought she would be. Ann was such a faithful little thing—how she had loved him in the old days. Shame took hold of him as he remembered his neglect; well, he would make it up now. She would see he hadn’t forgotten after all. The next morning he made arrangements to leave by the quarter to five Gippsland express; he wired to tell them to expect him, and, walking down Collins Street in the lunch hour, his eye was caught by an expensive box of cigars in a shop window. Why, of course, just the thing for his father, and he must look for something for his mother, too. He thought of her soft grey hair and tired eyes, the trembling, work-worn hands. He bought the cigars, and turned along Elizabeth Street into Bourke Street, looking for what he called the “women’s shops.” He turned hurriedly into a shop, and hurried up the stairs, not waiting for the lift. Tall and imposing figures in black silk were standing about in the showroom; one elegant lady swam forward, surprise faintly showing in her stock query, “What would you like to see?” He decided to take her into his confidence, and in a few hesitating sentences he told her of his idea of buying a present for his mother. “1 thought perhaps a dress?” he ended lamely on a note of interrogation. After a little more conversation she went away, to return in a few moments with a box, which proved to contain a dress, such a dress as his mother certainly had never possessed—soft and black, the rich silk reflecting the light, a froth of white in the small opening at the neck and wrists. She held it up in front of him silently. He looked helplessly back at her. “I think she would like it,” she said, “anyone’s mother would! ”

So he had it packed up in a thin, flat box, and a beautiful black lace shawl that she showed him as well. He started back to the office, feeling a glow of satisfaction, with the easy way some people have of putting unpleasant things aside; he forgot all the years between, and was sure he would find everything as he had left it. Some hours later he put his parcels carefully in the train, and strolled to the bookstall. He bought several papers, and saw among the new books on the front of the stall one whose paper jacket showed an old garden and masses of lilac. It was “Lilac Time,” by Pat O’Hara. He picked it up. “I’ll take this,” he said, and ran back to his seat as the train pulled out. He turned the pages idly—strange

how lilac seemed to haunt him. He read the dedication: “To a memory of the past. “If love is priceless, it was silly

To make so very sure of me.” “All vain regrets I bid you smother. And learn this lesson gratis, free To be as careful of another. As you have been too sure of me.”

Then he tossed it aside, and was soon lost in his papers.

When he reached Melorna, where he had to get a coach to take him the last stage of the journey home to his own township, he noted with surprise that there were two motors in place of the old three-horse coach he expected to see.

“Gone ahead, by jove!” he said to himself, as he gathered up his parcels and bag.

There was no mistaking Ted Smith, however. He looked just the same—maybe a few more wrinkles. “Heljo, Ted!” he called out. “Got a bus?”

Ted looked him up and down keenly. “Gosh!” he returned, “if it ain’t Kit Grant! Well, I never. Thought you’d clean forgot the way up here.” Christopher flushed. “Been busy,” he said shortly. “We work hard in town!” Ted snorted with small elegance but great expression.

“Is that so?” he retorted drily. “Why In the country we just get up, sit around a spell, and then go to bed. Coming up with me? Guess your mother’ll be glad to see you, Kit.” “How are they all?” asked Ted, bundling in his traps. “Busy,” said Ted. “The old man hasn’t been too well, and Tom’s just about had his hands full.”

It was not long before they stopped with a jerk at the well-remembere.i gate. The door was open, and Kit could see his mother standing on the wide verandah. He jumped down, leaving his bag to Ted, and ran up the steps. In a moment she was in his arms; how little and frail she seemed! It was only after the meal was over and they sat down to talk that Kit noticed how tired and worn his father looked. “Old and patient,” he said to himself, with a sharp contraction of the heart. His mother, too, had aged, and her eyes were tired and had the same patient look; he noticed that her hands trembled as she smoothed the black lace shawl he had brought. “It’s beautiful, dear, beautiful,” she said fondly, with a little quiver of the lip.

The old man sat in his big chair, and puffed contentedly at his cigar; the box lay on the table at his elbow, and he glanced at it with pride now and then. He was very fond and proud of this son of his. There was so much to say and so much to hear that it wasn’t until much later that Kit put the question he wanted most to ask. Mother and son were alone; his father and Tom, tired out with a long, hard day, had gone off to bed. “And Ann, mother; is she just the same?’* “Ann, dear; I thought you knew, why Ann ” Kit straightened in his chair suddenly. “Tell me, mother —I don’t know anything. Where is Ann?” “Ann’s in Melbourne, Kit! has been for the last •year. Her mother died two years ago, and that left her quite alone.” “But why did she go to Melbourne? Why didn’t she come here?” he demanded. The picture of little faithful Ann waiting his return was shattered by his mother’s words.

“I wanted her to, but she said she couldn’t. You had stopped writing to her years ago, she said, except for an occasional brief note, and she felt you had forgotten her,” said his mother. “What’s she doing in Melbourne?” asked Kit abruptly. Ann, why he’d made sure Ann understood, and was

waiting. She knew he’d come back some day! “Why. Kit, don’t you know; surely you remember how she always said she would be a writer one day—and you brought her book with you. I thought you knew ” she broke off, staring at his annoyed and stricken face. For a moment neither spoke. Christopher sat, his complacent dream of “everything being just the same” shattered to fragments; the first faint stirrings of a thought that perhaps his neglect and selfishness had spoilt the future that he had always intended, vaguely, some day to spend with Ann, raised its head, serpent-like, in the depths of his mind. At last he pulled himself together. “Tell me all about it, mother; what book do you mean?” “Why, ‘Lilac Time,’ Kit. It has just come out. She sent me a copy a few : weeks ago. They say it will be a sue- 1 cess. After her mother’s death she felt j she wanted to leave this little town and get work to occupy her mind. She’d : always written a bit, you know.” ' Yes, he’d known, but so self-centred : had he»been that he had brushed aside ' her plans and ambitions, and always I talked of his own. Now she had struck out for herself, and succeeded, too. He twisted uncomfortably at the ( thought. “Where’s she living?” he asked. “At a boarding-house in Hawthorn; very nice people, she says, stay there, and it’s quiet, -with lots of time for her work; she seems very happy.” Kit drew the book toward him. He felt he wanted to read it at once. It ' would tell him more than anyone else could what Ann felt. His mother, seeing the movement, knew his desire, and with the keen insight of love, felt i he wanted to be alone. She kissed him lovingly, and, caution- i ing him not to sit up too late, left him there before the fire. He took up the book almost fearfully. Something told him he would see Ann’s view of his conduct between the covers, and an uneasy feeling that she hadn’t perhaps looked on him as he looked on himself took hold of him. He read : the dedication again—two lines rang ' in his brain—“lf love is priceless, it was silly t ■ To make so very sure of me.” : And again—“To be as careful of another As you have been too sure of me.” 1 “Too sure.” Yus, he’d been too sure. All the little attentions of friendship, : the little seals of love, he’d let slide; he hadn’t thought it worth while to . keep his memory green with the little gracious acts which come, in absence, as water in the desert. He had ex- < pected a great deal, and given—nothing! ■ He sat, staring in front of him, his gaze turned inward; everything was ; very quiet. His thoughts raced over '< the past; he was seeing it for the first > time as it might have appeared to " other eyes. He roused himself, and resolutely started on the book. He read first the criticism on the paper jacket. “A charming and simple story,” ; it said, “somewhat resembling the American ‘small-town* stories we are . rll so familiar with, but fresher and • sweeter, breathing the very atmosphere j of Gippsland townships—our bush. ■ The fragrance of lilac and wattle meets us on every page. The characters are true and vital.” Hour after hour passed. He was absorbed in his reading, not merely because he wanted to see what Ann had written. The story held him; the characters seemed like old friends. He saw himself striding through the pages, ; and a girl like Ann—he saw more than this even; saw all the sorrow and the : pain of love forlorn, as well as the joy of love’s beginning—saw it gradually surmounted, and a greater and nobler end than he could have conceived. When at last in the small hours he laid the book down, he knew —dearer a thousand times, infinitely more desirable than she had ever been—Ann gleamed in the far distance, elusive, successful—and lost to him! She had loved him—yes—he knew that well enough. He remembered her dear, soft eyes, her gentle hands, all the tender steadfastness of her. He went to bed In deep depression. The next morning he was awakened

by the old familar sounds —heard his mother moving softly about, smelt the coffee boiling on the stove. He dressed, still oppressed by the feelings of the last night. He tcld himself that he must shake it off. He must not be cad enough to hurt his mother by seeming sad and downhearted at home. He had done enough to hurt her in the past. So he whistled cheerily, and went into breakfast with his brightest smile. They were all very merry. He spent most of the day with his father and Tom out on the farm, and got into tea, tired with the unaccustomed exertion. That night he had a long talk with his mother, and obtained Ann’s address at Hawthorn. In his heart he felt it would be no use, but he felt that he must see Ann, and he longed for the time when they should meet. Surely, surely he could reawaken the old love. The next day he returned to town. When he wished his mother goodbye, he said, very low, “You can expect me home every month, dear; don’t know how ever I stayed away so long: it won’t happen again.” His mother just held him close, and said no word of reproach, as is the way of mothers; but glad tears stood in her eyes, as she waved her handkerchief as long as the motor-car was in sight. Her boy had come back to her. The next day was Saturday, and. after a hurried hour or two at the office, he rushed to the telephone and rang up Hawthorn 205 and asked for Miss Wishart. A cool voice replied that “Miss Wishart was out: was there any message?” “No, no message,” he said. “Could they tell him when she would be likely to be in?” “She will be in to lunch,” replied the voice. Kit slammed up the receiver, and reached for his hat. Half-past 12. He would have time for a hasty lunch, and tlhen he would go out to Hawthorn in the car before she had time to start out for the afternoon. He jerked the car to a standstill outside a cafe, and hurried upstairs to his usual place at a table in the window, ate a hasty lunch, and was in the car again without waste of time. He looked at his watch—2o past I—he could make Hawthorn by a quarter to two; she would not be likely to go out before that! He found the place easily enough—a big old house, in a pretty garden, with wide verandahs, running round three sides of it. A couple of small boys were playing in the garden, and some people sitting on the verandah. He wondered, as he rang the bell, if Ann was among them. The neat maid conducted him to a room of cool light colours and big bay windows. Left to himself, he stared with unseeing eyes out Into the garden. Ann; what would Ann say? He turned at the sound of an opening door. Yes, it was Ann, but not the Ann of six years ago;.she had lost something of the extreme youth that had made everyone call her “little Ann,” and this girl was beautiful as little Ann had never been. There was the same lovely velvet brown of eyes, the same burnished hair, but there was an added poise and graciousness that became her marvellously well; a little puzzled knit of the brows disturbed the gaze she bent upon him, and then recognition dawned in her eyes. “Why, why. Kit,” she said softly, coming forward with outstretched hands.

Kit gathered them into his own, and stood looking down hungrily into her face, but the eyes she raised to his

showed only surprise, and after a moment she gently withdrew her hands. They sat down on the bif vt»omy old couch and talked; how' they talked! What a lot of dropped threads there were to be knitted up. Desperately Kit tried to explain the unexplainable. Ann gently silenced him, and turned the talk into other channels. Somehow he found it impossible to reopen the subject. Time flew, and presently the rattle of cups announced afternoon tea; the other members of the boarding-house family came straggling in. and Ann introduced Kit. Last of all came a good-looking young man. and “I want you to know my friend, Mr. Mallory, said Ann. “Peter, this is a very old friend of my youthful days. Mr. Grant.” And in that neat little sentence Kit heard the death-knell of his belated longings. It did not take him long to see that Peter and Ann were congenial com - panions—and something more. Peter Mallory, with a masterful tilt to his dark head, steady grey eyes, and a settled purpose about his well-cut mouth; Ann with all the charm of happy love about her. Kit took his leave; viciously he pressed the selfstarter. The steady purring of the car seemed to reiterate mockingly—“lf love is priceless, it was silly To make so very sure of me!”