White Lilac; or the Queen of the May

The story of White Lilac, by Amy Walton 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.