two nights later, when the stars had come out to look down at the green glen and the curtains were drawn in dreams, ann sat down before a small table on which lay a pile of paper and a fountain-pen, and told her mother that she was now ready to write her life.
"but how do you begin a life?" mrs. douglas asked. she was sitting in her favourite low chair, doing what she called her "reading." beside her was a pile of devotional books, from each of which she read the portion for the day. nothing would make her miss this ceremony, and she carted the whole pile about with her wherever she went.
"shall i give you the date of my birth and say that i was the child of poor but honest parents? i seem to remember that beginning."
"no," ann decided, "we'll leave dates alone; they are 'chiels that winna ding.' the point is, what style would you like me to write it in? we might begin like the arabian nights—'it is related (but god alone is all-knowing, as well as all-wise and all-mighty and all-bountiful) that there was in ancient times a fair virgin, helen....' but i think, perhaps, your history is too tame and domestic for such a highly coloured style."
"i should think so, indeed," said her mother, as she laid down hours of silence and took up come ye apart.
"what about the russian touch?" ann asked, waving her pen. "like this: 'she turned upon her pillow, tearing at its satin cover with her nails, then, taking a spoonful of bromide, she continued——'"
"oh, ann—don't be ridiculous!"
"or shall i dispense entirely with commas, inverted and otherwise, and begin without a beginning at all, as the very best people do? it does make aunt agatha so angry, that sort of book, where no explanations are offered, and you suddenly find yourself floundering among a lot of christian names. anyway, it's much too clever for me to attempt! i'm afraid we must confine ourselves to a plain narrative, with no thoughts, only incidents. i think i'll begin: 'in my youth i wasna what you would ca' bonnie, but i was pale, penetratin', and interestin'.' how is that?"
mrs. douglas shook her head. she had reached from day to day, and would soon be at the apex of the pile, golden grain. "if you are going to describe my appearance you might at least be accurate."
"well," said her daughter, "i only know you from a very old photograph as a moon-faced child with tight curls, and then, later, with two babies and a cap! what were you really like?"
mrs. douglas sat very upright, with a becoming pink flush on her face and a little smile at the corners of her mouth. "i can see myself the day i met your father for the first time. i had on my first silk dress—royal blue it was—and a locket with a black velvet ribbon round my neck, and my hair most elaborately done in what was called a 'mane,' some rolled up on the top, some hanging down. my hair was my best point. it was thick and wavy, and as yellow as corn. your father always said he fell in love with the back of my head. who would believe it who saw me now?"
"'faigs, ye're no' bad,' as marget would say," ann comforted her. "as one gets older looks are chiefly a matter of dress. when you take pains with your clothes no woman of your age looks better; but when you wander out in a rather seedy black dress, with a dejected face under a hat that has seen better days, you can't wonder at what my friend mrs. bell said after meeting you one wet day: 'eh, puir auld buddy; she's an awfu' worrit-lookin' wumman; it fair makes me no' weel to look at her!'"
"yes, ann, but you shouldn't have laughed. i don't like that mrs. bell. she's a forward woman, and you spoil her."
"oh, i told her you weren't really old, but those women are so surprisingly young. they have grown-up families and hordes of grandchildren, and you think they are at least seventy and they turn out to be fifty. of course, it was rather disrespectful of her to call you 'puir auld buddy,' but the 'awfu' worrit-lookin'' was such an exact description of you doing good works on a wet day in your old clothes that i had to laugh. but we're not getting on."
"it's absurd to talk of writing my life," mrs. douglas said. "there is nothing worth telling about. i asked alison last summer what she was going to be, and she tossed back that yellow mane of hers, and said earnestly, 'well, gran, i did think of being a poet, but i've decided just to be an ordinary woman with a baby.' that's all i ever was. an ordinary woman with several babies and a man and a kirk to look after—a big handful for any woman. i'd better begin where, for me, the world first began, at etterick. you remember the old house, don't you, with its white-washed walls and high pointed roof, standing at the end of the village? when i think of it it always seems to be summer; the shadow of the house falling black across the white road, a baker's van standing in the village, and one of the wives holding out her white apron for loaves, a hen clucking sleepily, the hum of the bees among the flowers in the old garden, the clink-clink from the smiddy at the burnside, my mother in a thin blue dress standing in the doorway with a basket on her arm—the peace of a summer afternoon! and the smell of it! new-mown grass drying in the sun, indescribable sweet scents from the flower-thick roadsides, the smiddy smell of hot iron sizzling on big hoofs, wafts from the roses in the garden—those most fragrant, red, loose-petalled roses that now i never see. inside the house was cool and dark, with drawn blinds. d'you remember the parlour? i can tell you where every bit of furniture in it stood. the bureau behind the door, and along the wall the old, wide sofa. i've often told you about the upholsterer from priorsford, who came to prescribe for it when its springs began to subside? he had a lisp, and after the examination was finished he said simply and finally, 'the thofo's done.' how we laughed over that, and the 'thofo' held on for another twenty years, never getting much worse. yes, the piano came next to the sofa, and then the wide window with all the little panes. the tea-table stood there in summer, and one could see all who passed by. 'the day the chaise and pair gaed through caddonfoot' was a saying in the countryside, but etterick boasted carts and carriages in some profusion. i wonder if my mother's teas were really better than anyone else's? the cream so thick that it had to be helped out of the jug with a spoon! and the 'thin' scones coated with fresh-churned butter! my dear robbie revelled in them. he wrote from india, you remember, that when camping they ran short of bread, and the cook said he would bake some chupattis. 'and,' wrote robbie, 'by the grace of god the chupattis turned out to be my grandmother's "thin" scones!'"
"i remember," said ann. "he introduced me to them when i went out. wasn't the house at etterick an inn once?"
"yes, and all the rooms had numbers painted on the doors. no. 8 was your nursery when we used to spend the summer there. and the playroom was called 'jenny berry'—why, i don't know; the reason for the name is lost in the mists of antiquity. it was the first place you all rushed to the moment you arrived, in a fever to see if your treasures were safe, and you always found them just as you left them. my mother was a very understanding woman with children. she wasn't, perhaps, a very tender grandmother as grandmothers go now, and you children held her in some awe; but you valued her good opinions, and you knew her to be absolutely just. she seldom praised, but, on the other hand, she never damped your enthusiasms. 'never daunton young folk' was one of her favourite sayings. yes. i'm afraid she was somewhat intolerant, poor dear. she had a great contempt for the gossiping, crocheting, hen-headed female that abounded in her day. 'a frivolous woman,' she would say after a visit from such a one, 'fit for nothing but fancy work and novelettes.' good looks appealed to her enormously, and she was glad all you children had what she called 'china' faces; swarthy people she could not abide. we took mrs. alston to see her when she was staying with us one summer at caddonfoot—dear mrs. alston, with her dun skin and projecting teeth and her heart of gold! your grandmother was the frailest little body then, only her indomitable spirit kept her going, and mrs. alston fussed over her and deferred to her in the kindest way. but the blandishments were all to no purpose; she looked coldly at the visitor, and afterwards, when i told her what a fine woman mrs. alston was, and what fine work she had done in the mission-field, all the answer i got was, 'oh, i dare say, but i never took my tea with a worse-looking woman.'"
"i remember that," said ann. "i remember how father shouted when you told him. granny was often very amusing, but what i remember most about her was her sense of comfort."
"yes, if i've any notion how to make a house comfortable i got it from my mother. she was great in preparing for people. if we had only gone to priorsford for the day she made of our return a sort of festival. out on the doorstep to meet us, fires blazing, tea ready, and such a budget to tell us of the small events of the day. some women are so casual with their children, they don't thirl them to themselves. they let them go and come, and seem to take very little interest in their comings and their goings, don't even trouble to be in the house when the boys come home for the holidays; suppose vaguely that this one or that one will be home to-day or to-morrow, never think of preparing a welcome. and then they wonder that their children have no love for their home; that when they go out into the world, they don't trouble to write except at infrequent intervals; that sometimes their lives drift so far apart that they cannot hear each other speak."
"mother," said ann, "you speak wisely, but how much of this is to go down in your life? at present i have only got that you had yellow hair and a royal blue silk dress and a locket. oughtn't i to say something about your childhood and what influenced you and all that sort of thing? do try to remember some thoughts you had; you know the sort of thing these 'strong' novels are full of—your feelings when you found they had drowned your kitten—and weren't you ever misunderstood and driven to weep floods of tears in secret?"
mrs. douglas shook her head. "no, i never was clever enough to think the things children think in modern novels. and i don't remember being misunderstood, except that i was always considered rather a forward child when really i suffered much from shyness. one morning, with a great effort, i managed to say to old sibbald, it's a fine morning,' as i passed him. 'what are ye sayin' noo wi' yer impertinence?' was his most uncalled-for response. i think my childhood was too happy to have any history. one of a big family, with freedom to roam, and pets in abundance, i never had a dull minute. and etterick was a very interesting village, full of characters."
"wasn't there somebody called 'granny' you used to tell us stories about?"
"my mother's nurse. she died before you were born. the very wee-est woman that ever was—i used to pick her up and carry her about—and so bonnie, with a white-goffered mutch framing her face. we all loved that little old woman. she lived in a tiny house at the top of the village with tam, her husband; all her family were up and married and away. 'granny' was our refuge in every kind of storm—indeed, she was everybody's refuge. and she had a great heart in her little body. it was told of her that when her eldest boy ran away to edinburgh and enlisted, she made a pot of broth and baked a baking of scones for the children left at home, strapped the baby on her back, walked into edinburgh, bought the boy off, and walked back again—fifty-six miles in all! we have almost lost the use of our legs in these days of trains and motors. she never asked anything from anybody. i can remember her face when some well-meaning person offered her charity. 'na, na, thank ye kindly. i may be sodger-clad, but i'm major-minded.' and there was old peggy leithen, who gave a ha'penny to every beggar that came to the door, murmuring as she did so, 'charity covereth a multitude of sins,' and graphically described her conversion: 'i juist got the blessin' when ma knee was on the edge o' the bed steppin' in ahint geordie.' and there was jock look-up—but i could go on for hours. i think i was thirteen when i went to a boarding-school. i enjoyed that, too—all except the getting up to practise on winter mornings. i can feel now the chill of the notes on my numb fingers. i was going back to school for another year when i met your father and got married instead."
"seventeen, weren't you?"
"seventeen, and childish at that. i never had my hair up till my marriage day. your father was twenty-six."
"babes!" said ann.
"it's odd how things come about," said mrs. douglas, as she put the last of the text-books on the pile, and took off the large, round-eyed tortoise-shell spectacles that she wore when doing her "reading." "dr. watts, our own minister, was ordered to the south of france for the winter, and your father, who had just finished with college, came to take his place. we were used to fine ministers in etterick. dr. watts was a saint and a scholar, and the parish minister was one of god's most faithful servants—both were men of dignity and power. but your father was so young and ardent; he went through the district like a flame. he held meetings in lonely glens where no meeting had ever been held before. he kindled zeal in quiet people who had been content to let things go on as they had always gone; it was a wonderful six months. your aunt agatha, who, being older, had left school before i did, wrote to tell me of this extraordinary young man; indeed, her letters were so full of him that i made up my mind to dislike him at sight. and after i did meet him i pretended to myself and to agatha that i thought him a very tiresome young man. i mimicked the way he sang hymns and his boyish, off-hand manner, so unlike dr. watts' grave, aloof ways. i wish i had words, ann, to give you some idea of the man your father was in his youth. as he grew older he grew not less earnest, but more tolerant—mellower, perhaps, is the word. as a young man he was like a sword-blade, pure and keen. and yet he was such a boy with it all, or i never would have dared to marry him. i had absolutely no training for a minister's wife, but i went into it quite blithely. now, looking back, i wonder at myself. at the time i was like the little boy marching bravely into a dark room, his bigger brother explaining the phenomena with 'he hasna the sense to be feart.'"
"there's a lot in that," said ann. "but think what a loss to the world if you had remained a spinster—it hardly bears thinking of! well, we haven't got very far to-night. to-morrow you must tell me all about the wedding. i know alison would like to hear about the tiny, white, kid lacing shoes with pale blue rosettes that i used to look at in a drawer. i believe they finished up in a jumble sale."
"yes," mrs. douglas confessed. "it was the first one we ever had, and you know the sort of madness that seizes you when you see people eager to buy. i rushed home and looked out everything we could do without—my wedding slippers among the lot. and poor old mrs. buchanan, in a sort of ecstasy of sacrifice, climbed up to her kitchen shelf and brought down the copper kettle that in her saner moments she cherished like saffron, and threw it on the pyre. the sale was for women's foreign missions, and when at the end of the most strenuous evening any of us had ever spent the treasurer and i lugged our takings home in a cab, her husband met us at the door, and, lifting the heavy bag, said, 'i doubt it's alexander the coppersmith.' but it wasn't; it was fully £100. dear, dear, the excitements of a ministerial life!"
