The Collected Novels. Anna Buchan
He did as he was bid, and remained standing at the mantelpiece looking at the picture which hung above it.
"Your mother, isn't it?" he asked. "She was beautiful; Aunt Alice has often told me of her."
He looked in silence for a minute, and then went back to his chair and lit another cigarette.
"I never knew my mother, and I only remember my father dimly. I was only her husband's nephew, but Aunt Alice has had to stand for all my home-people, and no one knows except myself how successful she has been."
"She is the most golden-hearted person," said Elizabeth. "I don't believe she ever has a thought that isn't kind and gentle and sincere. I am so glad you had her—and that she had you. One can't help seeing what you have meant to her...." Then a spark of laughter lit in Elizabeth's grey eyes.
"Don't you love the way her sentences never end? just trail deliciously away ... and her descriptions of people?—'such charming people, such staunch Conservatives and he plays the violin so beautifully.'"
Arthur Townshend laughed in the way that one laughs at something that, though funny, is almost too dear to be laughed at.
"That is exactly like her," he said. "Was your mother at all like her sister?"
"Only in heart," said Elizabeth. "Mother was much more definite. People always said she was a 'sweet woman,' but that doesn't describe her in the least. She was gentle, but she could be caustic at times: she hated shams. That picture was painted before her marriage, but she never altered much, and she never got a bit less lovely. I remember once we were all round her as she stood dressed to go to some wedding, and Alan said, 'Are you married, Mums?' and when she said she was, he cried consolingly, 'But you would do again.'... I sometimes wonder now how Mother liked the work of a minister's wife in Glasgow. I remember she used to laugh and say that with her journeys ended in Mothers' Meetings. I know she did very well, and the people loved her. I can see her now coming in from visiting in the district, crying out on the drabness of the lives there, and she would catch up Buff and dance and sing with him and say little French nursery-songs to him, like a happy school-girl. Poor little Buff! He doesn't know what a dreadful lot he is missing. Sometimes I think I spoil him, and then I remember 'his mother who was patient being dead.'"
The fire had fallen into a hot red glow, and they sat in silence looking into it.
Presently the door opened, and Mr. Seton came in. He came to the fire and warmed his hands, remarking, "There's a distinct touch of frost in the air to-night, and the glass is going up. I hope it means that you are going to have good weather, Mr. Townshend."
He helped himself to a glass of milk and a biscuit.
"Elizabeth, do you know what that brother of yours has done? I happened to take down The Pilgrim's Progress just now, and found that the wretched little fellow had utterly ruined those fine prints by drawing whiskers on the faces of the most unlikely people."
Mr. Seton's mouth twitched.
"The effect," he added, "is ludicrous in the extreme."
His listeners laughed in the most unfeeling way, and Elizabeth explained to Mr. Townshend that when Buff was in fault he was alluded to as "your brother," as if hers was the sole responsibility.
"Well, you know," said Mr. Seton, as he made the window secure, "you spoil the boy terribly."
Elizabeth looked at Arthur Townshend, and they smiled to each other.
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