Ann and Her Mother (Autobiographical Novel). O. Douglas
have delighted in her. She was a daughter of the great Dr. Grierson—that mighty preacher and statesman—and she had much of the Grierson charm. Her husband, Dr. Watts, was laird as well as minister, and they didn't live at the Manse, but at their own place, Fennanhopes. It was about the greatest treat we had as children, to be invited to Fennanhopes, and I can't think why we liked it so much, for whenever we arrived Mrs. Watts would say, 'Now, friends,' and in a trice she had us all working hard. Some picked currants, some went to bring in the eggs, some weeded—but we all did something. We wouldn't have done it for anyone else, but we liked to please Mrs. Watts. She kept everybody busy: visitors (the house was always full), village, the whole countryside, and there is no doubt that the state of being pleasantly busy is the best we can attain to in this world. Mrs. Watts was a noted housewife, and servants trained by her were eagerly sought for. I remember going, during one Assembly time in Edinburgh, to a meeting at which Mrs. Watts was to speak. One knew what to expect as a rule—a rather gasped-out, tepid little homily from the wife of one or other well-known divine; but I rather thought Mrs. Watts would be different. I waited with interest, and presently she stepped on to the platform, looking so big and fine and of the open air, spoke for a few minutes in her clear, round voice, and then, looking round the meeting with friendly eyes she said, 'Now, friends, I am going to tell you how to make really good coffee.'"
Ann laughed. "What a dear! I wish I had known her. I can just remember Dr. Watts. It seemed to me, standing somewhere about his knees, that his head must be dangerously near the clouds, and I remember his gentle voice saying to me, 'It will take you a long time to grow as big as I am.' … Yes, and so between Mrs. Watts and Miss Ayton you learned something about cooking. And who chose your trousseau, and all your 'providing'?"
"Miss Ayton, really, but of course my mother was there too, and I was there, though I don't think I was supposed to have an opinion. You would laugh at my things now, but they were considered very handsome—the best that could be had at Kennington & Jenner's."
"What! Was Jenner's in Princes Street in those days?" cried Ann, astonished.
"Dear me, why shouldn't Jenner's have been in Princes Street then? Really, Ann, you talk as if it were before the Flood. I assure you my clothes caused something of a sensation in the countryside."
"I'm sure they did. I knew you had a sealskin coat, for it ended its long and useful existence as capes for Robbie and me. I liked mine, but Robbie wept bitterly, and said only coachmen wore capes. And you had a bonnet, hadn't you? A bonnet at seventeen!"
"A prune-coloured bonnet," said Mrs. Douglas, "high in front, and worn with a prune-coloured silk dress and the sealskin coat. Those were my 'going-away' things. But the dress your father liked best was navy blue, what was called a Princess dress, buttoned straight down with small brass buttons. I had a sort of reefer coat to wear with that, and a hat with a blue veil. And I had a black satin for evenings (no self-respecting bride would have been without a black satin) besides my bridal white satin."
"You must have looked a duck with those little white kid shoes with the big rosettes on the toes and the blue silk laces. I suppose you were married in the house?"
"Oh yes. Church weddings were practically unknown then. I was married in the drawing-room. Do you remember it? Rather a gloomy room, and not often used. The partition between the dining-room and the room next it was taken down, and the luncheon was laid on long tables. People came from Priorsford the day before and cooked and made ready. It had been a terrible storm, and the drifts were piled up high, but I don't think any of the invited guests stayed away, although many of them had long distances to drive. The preparations were very exciting. 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.
"I can just imagine," she said, "how jolly it must have been. The comfortable old house in the village street, all the rooms with blazing fires, and the kitchen with the flagged, uneven floor, hot and simmering with good things cooking, and the snow outside, and the horses stamping in the cold, frosty air, and the guests coming in laughing and talking. And Father so young and tall and blue-eyed, and you such a nice little white and gold bride, blue-eyed, too (no wonder there is such a lamentable lack of variety in the looks of your children; I do admire a family where some are dark, and some fair, and some red-haired—it isn't so dreadfully monotonous), and the bridesmaids in white with scarlet berries, and your little brothers all agape for good things. It must all have been so young and merry. A good send-off to a very happy married life, eh, Mother?"
Mrs. 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. On the whole a gay pattern, Mother."
"Oh yes, yes. I have had far beyond my deserts. For many years life was almost cloudless, except for the clouds I made with my own foolish fears and forebodings. Why did nobody shake me for my silliness? Fussing over trifles, worrying about the congregation, feverishly trying to lay by for an evil day. I wonder now how I could ever have made a trouble of anything when I had your father with me and all my children about me. And I knew I was happy, but I daren't say it even to myself, in case I brought disaster. What pagans we are at heart—afraid of envious fates! And then Rosamund died. … We thought we could never be happy again—but we were. It was never quite the same again; we walked much more softly, for the ground seemed brittle somehow, and the sorrow of the world came closer to us, and we went with a different understanding to the house of mourning—but we were happy. I think I must often have been very trying to my friends during those prosperous years. They talked of 'the Douglas luck,' for everything the boys tried for they seemed to get. And the educating being over we had more money in our hands, and you got about to see the world, and we could all go abroad at a time, and I could spend some money on the house—I always made a god of my house. How proud I was of my drawing-room when we got the green velvet carpet that was like moss, and the soft blue walls and hangings, and the big Chesterfield with the down cushions! And the tea-table set out with plates and green knives, while the people round were still handing their visitors a cup in their hand, and cake and scones on a cake-stand! I was a queen and no widow. … Why, Marget, is it nine o'clock already?"
Marget gave her demure, respectful curtsey, which was so oddly at variance with her frank and fearless comments on things in general, and sat down on a chair beside Mysie.
"Ay, Mem, it's nine o'clock. It's juist chappit on the lobby clock." She directed a suspicious glance towards the table where Ann sat. "Is Miss Ann gettin' on wi' yer Life? Dinna let her put in ony lees aboot us. How faur has she gotten? Juist to yer marriage? Oh, that's a' richt. I wasna there then. But I can keep ye richt aboot what happened ony time in the last five-and-thirty years."
CHAPTER IV
"No honeymoon!"
Ann's pen was held aloft in amaze, as she looked across at her mother seated at the other side of the fire in her very own chair that had stood by the nursery fireside in long past days. Well did Ann remember the comfortable squat legs of it from the time when she had lived in that world of chair-legs and the underside of sofas which we all inhabit at the beginning of things.
Ann's mother was knitting as usual, a stocking for a long-legged grandson; but she knitted mechanically, not looking at her work, her eyes on the dancing flames, a little reminiscent smile turning up the corners of her mouth.