O. Douglas

“ One day, to my joy, I found in a small grocer's shop tiny pots of jam and marmalade that cost one penny each, and Rosamund loved them for her dolls' tea-parties. If we could find anything to interest or amuse her, we were so proud. At first she was able to have us play quietly with her, then she began not to be able to walk about, and Mark carried her round the garden to look at the snowdrops and crocuses. We never owned to ourselves or each other that she wouldn't recover. ”

“ I like domestic fiction, gentle but not drivelling, good character drawing and a love story that ends all right."
"In other words," said Ann, "good print and happy ending. What about me? Why shouldn't I become the writer for middle-aged women? I might almost call myself a writer now that I have wrestled for weeks with your Life, and I believe I would find it easier to write fiction than biography—to leave what Marget calls 'facs' and take to 'lees.' Facts crib and cabin one. Given a free hand I might develop an imagination." ”

“ Ann looked up from her writing. "Hadn't you—I seem to remember—a cookery book from that class, a fat green book? It stood, for some reason, on the nursery bookshelf, and was a sort of Aladdin's Cave to us children. We pored over it, reading aloud the rich, strange ingredients, and lay on our faces gazing enraptured at the picture of a dinner-table laid for about sixty people, where each napkin was folded in a different way, and pheasants with long tail-feathers sat about in dishes, and brightly tinted jellies and creams and trifles made it blossom like a fairy garden. ”

“ The rest of us are too selfish to bother."
"I like to be kind," said Mrs. Douglas, "but I don't take any credit for being kind. It's just my nature to want to give. The people who hate to give and yet make themselves do it are the ones who ought to be commended. It has always been my great desire to add a little to the happiness of the world, and I would never forgive myself if I thought I had added by one jot or tittle to the pain."
"I am very sure you haven't done that," Ann assured her. ”

“ Douglas said stoutly; "we're not. If Martyrs' people were in the room now I'm sure they would say 'Amen' to all you say of your father. And I lived with him for thirty-four years and I couldn't imagine a better man. He was a saint, and yet he was human and funny and most lovable, and that isn't too common a combination. There can be nothing more terrible than to be married to a sanctimonious saint. Imagine being forgiven all the time! Every time you lost your temper or spoke maliciously or unadvisedly, to see a pained expression on his face!"
"It would drive one to crime," said Ann solemnly. ”

“ Aunt Agatha?"
"No, she was less sophisticated even than I was. My stand-by was Miss Ayton. My mother trusted her judgment and her taste and asked her help, and Miss Ayton was only too willing to give it; for, spinster of fifty as she was, she loved a marriage. She was one of those delightful women who can be vividly interested in their neighbours' business without ever being a nuisance, and she presided like a stout, benign fairy over my nuptials, getting things done, it seemed, by a wave of her wand."
Mrs. Douglas let her knitting fall on her lap, and lay back in her chair, smiling. ”

“ Ann sat on the fender-stool with her cup and saucer, and a pot of jam on the rug beside her, and a plate with a crumpet on her lap, and ate busily.
"Life is still full of pleasant things, Mums, pretty girls and crumpets, and strawberry jam, and fender-stools, and blazing fires, and little moaning mothers who laugh even while they cry. Your pessimism is like the bubbles on a glass of champagne—oh, I know you have been a teetotaller all your days, but that doesn't harm my metaphor." ”

“ Ann nodded. "That may be so, but you are more alive than most of us even now. I don't know anybody who takes so much interest in life, who has such a capacity for enjoyment, who burdens herself with other people's burdens as that same Mrs. Douglas who says she is only half-alive and longs to depart—and here is Mysie with the tea." ”

“ Douglas began to read her evening portion out of each of her many volumes, and Ann sat watching the flames leap, and thinking, thinking.
"Mother," she said suddenly, "you said a little while ago that I was spoiled as a child, but I wasn't. Dear me, I was a regular burden bearer, and Mark christened me 'The Patient Cuddy'! You see, I was hampered with always having a small brother to lug about; I could never harden my heart enough to leave them at home. An only girl in a family of brothers has really a harassed existence. It would have been different if Rosamund had lived. ”

“ Douglas laid down her book. "She loved being allowed to play with you," she said, "and you were good about making games that she could join in. But, somehow, she was more a companion to her father and me than your playfellow. For one thing, she shared your father's love of gardening. The rest of you helped sometimes in the garden, but you always let it be seen that it was a penance. You hardly knew one flower from another, and you sped like arrows from a bow whenever you were released. But Rosamund trotted about happily for hours, utterly contented to be with her father and the flowers. ”

“ The men who came back will, most of them, have to fight a grim struggle, for living is none too pleasant just now, and they will grow old, and bald, and ill-tempered, and they have all to die in the end. What is twenty more years of life but twenty more years of fearing death? But our men whose sacrifice was accepted, and who were allowed to pour out the sweet, red wine of youth, passed at one bound from glorious life to glorious life. 'Eld shall not make a mock of that dear head.' They know not age or weariness or defeat. ”

“ 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? ”

“ And there was the Hyacinth Den only a stone's-throw from our own door, and the bleach-field beyond, and beyond that again the Wild Wood. And our own Manse garden was not to be despised, for did it not look into a field owned by the Huttons—a clan as wild and lawless as our own, and many a battle took place between us. They had a friend known to us as 'Wild Scott of the Huttons,' a truly great and tireless fighter, and if he happened to be visiting them we never knew when a head would pop up over the wall where the big pear tree grew, and challenge us to mortal combat. ”

“ Douglas looked at her daughter without speaking, the tears slowly gathering in her eyes. Ann bent forward and laid her hand on her mother's. "Just say to me as Marget says, 'Oh, lassie, haud yer tongue!' I know that is what you are feeling like. It breaks your heart to look back. There has been so much happiness and such great sorrow; but the sad bits are as precious as the happy bits, and they all help to make the pattern. ”

“ Douglas turned to take up her stocking, with a bored look.
"I wonder," she said, "that you can be bothered talking so much nonsense."
"I wonder, too," said Ann, "with the world in the state it is in. But I do agree, there is nothing so trying as a facetious person! I wish I hadn't such high spirits. No wonder, Mother, that you are such a depressed wee body: to have had a husband and family who were always in uproarious spirits was enough to darken anybody's outlook on life. The first thing I remember about Glasgow is that you had a curly yellow coat and a sort of terra-cotta bonnet." ”

“ I used to go into the night nursery on those summer mornings—I was so young and strong that, anxious as I was I couldn't help sleeping—and find Mrs. Peat sitting there with her cap ribbons unruffled, her hair smooth, so serene looking that no one could have believed that she had kept a weary vigil. She was a born nurse, and she possessed a healing touch. I believe she did more than anyone to pull Mark through; and all the time we were in Kirkcaple she was a tower of strength to me. ”

“ 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. ”

“ About your wedding—did my grandmother choose your things? When I knew her she took very little interest in clothes, just wore whatever was brought to her."
"Ah, but she wasn't always like that. I remember Agatha and myself almost in tears begging her not to get a purple silk dress and bonnet which she much desired, as we thought them absurdly youthful for her years. Poor body! I don't believe she was more than forty. Daughters can be very unfeeling."
"They can," Ann agreed, with a twinkle. "My poor grandmother! What a shame to deprive her of her purple silk! ”

“ Ann leant back in her chair and pulled a little green book from a bookshelf. "This, I think it was," she said, and read:
"'I am content to stand still at the age to which I am arrived; I, and my friends, to be no younger, no richer, no handsomer. I do not want to be wearied by age, or drop like mellow fruit, as they say, into the grave....'"
"Poor Charles Lamb!" said Mrs. Douglas, shaking her head. "There are times when one would like to stand still, where we seem to reach a pleasant, rich plain and are at our ease, and friends are many, and life is full of zest.... ”

“ 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! ... ”

“ I talk to God when I'm ill and to Whuppetie when I'm well.' The year before, her great joy had been to go to the water meadow, where the banks of the ditch were blue with forget-me-nots. I had always avoided the place in her illness, and she had never asked to be taken; but one day, when we were driving past, we heard the little Crichton girls say to their mother, 'Come after us when you're ready, Mummy; we're going down to the water meadow to get forget-me-nots.' Rosamund turned and looked at me, and there was such utter sadness in her eyes that my heart seemed as if it must break.... ”

“ I remember the great rich cakes from Edinburgh being cut down with a lavish hand, and big, round, thick cakes of shortbread with white sweeties on them, so the guests must have had tea as well as luncheon, and been well warmed and fed. Rather unlike our modern weddings, with a crumb of bridescake and a thimbleful of champagne, followed by a cup of tea and a sandwich. Hare soup, and roasts of all sorts, and creams and trifles galore. I was child enough to enjoy it all."
Ann stopped writing and sat with her fountain-pen poised in her hand, looking into the fire. ”

“ Douglas, when the guest had at last departed, "it's a blessing there is a moon—and that he knows the hill road well. It will take him all his time to be at Birkshaw in time for dinner."
"You shouldn't have made yourself so agreeable, Mother. He couldn't bear to leave your interesting conversation."
"As to that," said Mrs. Douglas, "it does one good to see a man sometimes and hear a man's talk."
"Mother," laughed Ann, "you dearly love a man, and you have all the Victorian woman's reliance on a man's opinion. You love doing things for their benefit; you positively pander to them." ”

“ 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 was miserable work dismantling the house and packing up and saying good-bye."
"Everything has an end," said Ann, "'and a pudden has twa,' to quote Marget's favourite saying. But I could hardly believe we were finished with Martyrs, that we would tramp no more that long road, and sit no more in that back pew to the side of the pulpit, and look up at Father Sunday after Sunday—Mother, surely Father was a very good preacher?"
Mrs. Douglas sat up very straight, as if she were challenging anyone to contradict her, and said proudly: "He was the best preacher I ever heard. ”

“ One day I was standing at the study window and saw an old-clothes woman—Mrs. Burt was her name—who came regularly to ask if we had anything for her, standing at the gate as if hesitating whether or not to come in. Then I saw your father approach, raise his hat, saw him go up to the startled woman and shake her warmly by the hand, and then conduct her into the house. 'Nell,' he shouted, 'here's an old friend to see you—Mrs. Beattie from Kirkcaple! She must have some lunch.'"
"Mrs. Burt turned to me a distressed, red face, and I stared at her wondering which of us had gone mad. ”

“ Douglas was about to speak, but Ann hurried on:
"No, Mother, don't defend them. You can't have forgotten that black day when the Nicol family arrived to spend the afternoon—John and Mackenzie, ripe for any wickedness. The house had just been spring cleaned, and was spotless, and those two boys went through it like an army with banners. It was wet, and they couldn't go out to the garden, and they scoffed at the very idea of looking at picture-books. They slid down the banisters, they tobogganed down the white enamelled stairs, they kicked the paint off the doors. ”

“ Douglas asked.
"Oh yes. You were quite right to advise me to take it. You never know about people now. Some have never got over war-habits and still wear sort of half-and-half things in the evening—rather tired-looking afternoon dresses or jumpers; but the Miss Scotts came down charming in lace and jewels and beautifully done hair. I do like that. Heaviest of tweeds and thick boots in the daytime, but in the evening perfect in every detail—so I was glad I had a pretty fresh frock to do them honour."
Ann stretched out her feet to the blazing fire. ”

“ Mark was two months old when we left Inchkeld. When the Kirkcaple congregation called your father he felt he ought to go. Oh! but we were a thoughtless couple. It never gave me a thought to leave the people who had been so good to us. I just took everybody's kindness as a matter of course. I was too young to realise how rare such kindness is, and their interest in the baby, and their desire to have us stay in Inchkeld seemed to me no more than natural. I was amused and pleased at the thought of going to a new place and a new house. You can hardly get changes enough when you are eighteen. ”

“ The younger one specially attracted me—they way she beamed through her spectacles and said 'Yes' unexpectedly, whenever a pause occurred in the conversation. They are going to help me a lot with the garden; their own place is lovely. It's a nice happy way to end one's days—living peacefully among growing flowers! Think of all the old women who live in hotels and boarding-houses, quite comfortable, I dare say, so far as fires and light and a good bed, and well-cooked food go, but so barren of all interest except a morbid curiosity about their fellow-prisoners! How spacious a country life is! ”