november is a poor time to go to a new place, and kirkcaple certainly looked a most unattractive part of the world when we arrived on a cold, wet afternoon. 'the queer-like smell' from the linoleum factories, the sea drearily grey and strange to my inland eyes, the drive through narrow streets and up the steep path, past great factories and mean houses, until we reached the road, knee-deep in mud, where the manse stood, combined to depress me to the earth. it might have been infinitely worse. i saw that in the light of the next morning. there was a field before the manse, and though there was a factory and a rope-work and a bleach-field and a coal-pit all in close proximity to it, there was also the den, where hyacinths grew in spring, and where you could dig fern roots for your garden. the manse itself stood in a large garden, and in time we forgot to notice the factories. the people were very unlike the courteous inchkeld people—miners and factory workers, who gave one as they passed a jack's-as-good-as-his-master sort of nod. we grew to understand them and to value their staunch friendship, but at first they were as fremt as the landscape.
"when the cab lurched through the ruts to the manse gate and i got out and saw my new home i quailed. from the front it was a gloomy-looking house—one window on each side of the front door, and three windows above, and the kitchen premises on one side. there was a wide gravelled space in front, with a small shrubbery to shelter us from the road. it was a sombre and threatening place to enter on a dark night, and when alone i always made a mad rush from the gate to the front door. one night when i reached my haven i found a tall man standing against it. i had hardly strength to gasp, 'who are you?' and the man replied, 'weelum dodds. i cam' to see the minister aboot gettin' the bairn bapteezed, but the lassie wadna open the door.' i had told the servants, who were young girls, to keep the chain on the door at night, and the poor patient soul had just propped himself up against the door and awaited developments.... the back of the house, looking to the garden, was delightful. you don't remember the garden?"
"don't i?" said ann. "i was only about nine when we left kirkcaple, but i remember every detail of it. just outside the nursery window there was a bush of flowering currant. do you remember that? and jasmine, and all sorts of creepers grew up the house. there was a big square lawn before the window, rather sloping, with two long flowerbeds at the top and herbaceous borders round the high walls. our own especial gardens were at the top of the kitchen garden. mark had a rose of sharon tree in his garden about which he boasted; it seemed to set him a little apart. i had a white lilac tree in mine; robbie, severely practical, grew nothing but vegetables, while jim, when asked what his contained, said simply and truthfully, 'wurrums.' rosamond was a tiny baby when we left kirkcaple, and the little lad knew only glasgow. it was surely a very large garden, mother? the gooseberry bushes alone seemed to me to extend for miles, and in a far-away corner there was the pigsty. why was it called 'the pigsty'? in our day there was never anything in it but two much-loved russian rabbits with pink eyes, fluffy and pluffy. i have a small red text-book in which, on a certain date, is printed in large round hand:
'this day fluffy died.
" " pluffy " '
a ferret got in and sucked their blood. what a day of horror that was! the roof of the pigsty sloped up to the top of the wall, and we liked to sit on the wall and say rude things to the children on the road, they retorting with stones and clods of earth. we were all bonnie fighters. you had no notion, you and father, when we came down to tea with well-brushed hair and flannel-polished faces, of the grim battles we had just emerged from. the enemy was even then at the gate. we, with ears to hear, knew what sundry dull thuds against the front door meant. marget, wrathful but loyal, wiped away the dirt and said nothing to you—lots to us, though! ... but i'm getting years ahead. you were just arriving with baby mark to an empty, echoing manse, through ways heavy with november mud. sorry i interrupted."
"as to that," said her mother, "i was really just talking to myself. it is good of you to listen to my maunderings about the past."
"not at all," ann said solemnly; and then, "you daft wee mother, now that courtesies have been exchanged will you go on with that life of yours? it will take us years at this rate. what happened when you tottered into the manse? did you regret the little sunny, bow-windowed manse in inchkeld?"
"regret! i ached for it. i couldn't picture us being happy in this muddy mining place; i couldn't see this bare barracks ever getting homelike. but it was a roomy house. the dining-room was to the right of the front door, the study to the left, and the nursery was on the ground floor, too. they were all big square rooms: the dining-room was cosy in the evening but rather dark in the day time; the study was a very cheerful room, with books all round the walls, and a bright red carpet, and green leather furniture."
"and a little square clock," ann added, "with an honest sort of face, and a picture of john knox, long white beard and all, above the mantelpiece, and the carpet had a design on it of large squares; i know, for i used to play a game on it, jumping from one to another. some deceased elder had left to the manse and to each succeeding minister a tall glass-doored bookcase containing, among other books, a set of shakespeare's plays illustrated. it was funny to see how the artist had made even falstaff and ariel quite early victorian—and as for merry beatrice i think she wore a bustle! not that it worried us; we were delighted with his efforts ... and in that glass-doored bookcase there stayed also a very little book dressed in fairy green, with gilt lettering on its cover. i have tried for years to find another copy, but i have nothing to go on except that it was a very tiny book and that it contained fairy tales, translations from the german i think, for it talked in one of a king lying under the green lindens! i thought linden the most lovely word i had ever heard! it seemed to set all the horns of elfland blowing for me. one of the stories must have been lohengrin, there was a swan in it and 'a frail scallop.' how i wept when it appeared for the second time and took the knight away for ever! i loved germany then because it was the home of green lindens and swans with scallops, and houses with pointed roofs and wide chimneys where storks nested. even in the war i couldn't hate it as much as i ought to have done, because of that little green book.... but we're straying again, at least i am.... you got to like the house, didn't you?"
"oh dear, yes. it was terribly gaunt at first, but before we left it i thought it was pretty nearly perfect. when we got fresh paper and paint, and the wide upper landing and staircase carpeted with crimson, and curtains shading the high staircase window, everyone said how pretty it was. the drawing-room was always a pleasant room, with two sunny windows, and all my treasures (you would call them atrocities) in the way of gilt and alabaster clocks with glass shades, and marble-topped chiffonier, and red rep furniture. but the big night nursery was the nicest room of all, with its row of little beds, each with a gay counterpane! there was a small room opening from it where your clothes stayed, with a bath and a wash-hand basin—a very handy place."
"yes," said ann; "and in one corner stood a very tall basket for soiled clothes. i remember robbie, after hearing of someone's marriage, coming to you and saying so earnestly, 'i'll stay with you always, mums, and if anyone comes to marry me i'll hide in the dirty-clothes basket.'"
robbie's mother looked into the dancing flames. "that was always his promise," she said softly, "i'll stay with you always.... it wouldn't have been so bad beginning in a new place, with a new baby (and me so utterly new myself!) if mark hadn't been so fragile. i daresay he suffered from my inexperience, i almost smothered him with wraps, and hardly dared let him out of the warm nursery, but he must have been naturally delicate as well. he got bronchitis on the smallest provocation, and my heart was perpetually in my mouth with the frights i got. i spent hours listening to his breathing and touching him to see if he felt hot, and i kept your father racing for the doctor until both he and the doctor struck. i was so wrapped up in my baby that i simply never turned my head to look at the congregation; but they understood and were patient. i really was very absurd. some people gave a dinner-party for us, and your father said i simply must go. on the night of the party i was certain mark was taking croup, and i could hardly be dragged from him to dress. i was determined that anyway i must be home in good time, and i ordered the cab to come back for us at a quarter to nine! we had hardly finished dinner when it was announced, but i rose at once to go. the hostess, astonished but kind, said on hearing my excuses, 'ah, well, experience teaches.' 'finish your proverb, mrs. smeaton,' my dinner neighbour (a clergyman from a neighbouring parish) broke in, 'experience teaches fools.' now i realise that the man was embittered—and little wonder!—by having tried to make conversation to me for a dreary hour, but at the moment i hated him. when we left kirkcaple he and his wife were our greatest friends.... there were four houses in our road. the large one nearest the den belonged to one of the linoleum people, we came next, and then there was a low, bungalow sort of house where the mestons lived with their three little girls, and at the end of the road lived one of the elders in the church—goskirk was the name—with his wife and eight sons. how they all got into that small house i know not, but it was always comfortable, and there was always a welcome, and mrs. goskirk was the busiest, happiest little woman in kirkcaple, and a great stand-by to me. 'how's baby to-day?' she would come in saying, every word tilted up at the end as is the accent of fife. as rich in experience as i was poor, she could soothe my fears and laugh at my forebodings. she prescribed simple, homely remedies and told me not to fuss. she gave me a new interest in life, and kept me happily engaged by teaching me how to make clothes for mark. her little boys trotted in and out, coming to show me all their treasures, and going away pleased with a sweetie or a sugar biscuit! they did much to make me feel at home.... when i went back to etterick in summer i thought mark was a lovely baby, and that he had a wonderful mother! he wore a pelisse i had made him (under mrs. goskirk's eye), cream cashmere, with a wide band of lavender velvet, and a soft, white felt hat with a lavender feather round it. i paid fifteen shillings for the feather and thought it a great price.... for three years we had only mark, then you and robbie quite close together. but mark was never put in the 'stirk's stall'; for you were a healthy, placid baby, and my dear robbie was just like you. i remember his coming so well. it was a february morning, and mrs. perm, the nurse, said: 'another deil o' a laddie.' she much preferred girls. robbie was such a caller baby, so fat and good-natured and thriving."
"my very first recollection of robbie," ann said, "is in the garden. i think it must have been an april morning, for i remember daffodils, and the sun was shining, and the wind tumbling us about, and mark said to me that he thought ellie robbie meant to run away with robbie, and that it behoved us to save him. as he told me his terrible suspicions robbie came down the walk pulling behind him a large rake—a little boy with an almost white head, very blue eyes, and very chubby, very rosy cheeks. i remember we separated him from his rake and mark dragged us both into the gooseberry bushes, where we lay hid until ellie robbie (the suspect) came to look for us, bringing us a treat in the shape of a slice each of brown scone spread with marmalade, and two acid drops. that closed the incident."
