Mary Ann gave her a puzzled glance. Something was wrong.
"Of course you'll be well by then, dearie. You heard what the doctor
said to-day--that you might go back to having your cup of tea again
to-morrow. That's always the first sign you're getting well, then you
get leave to sit up. A week sitting up in your room, a week going
downstairs----" Mary Ann began to check off the weeks on her fingers,
but her mother interrupted.
"Was that Jane the doctor was talking to so long in the hall to-day?"
"Let me see. No, that was Selina."
"What was he saying to her?"
"He was saying every blessed thing that he's said to me since you took
sick, and that I've repeated over again to her. But you know how it is
with those two, Ma. I believe they think there's some kind of magic in
the marriage ceremony that gives a woman sense--they don't give me
credit for a speck. When Selina told me she was going to speak to the
doctor herself to-day, says she, 'You know that it stands to reason,
Mary Ann, that you can't be as experienced as one that has been a wife
five years and a widow seven'; and then Jane seemed to think it was
being cast up to her that she wasn't a widow, so she speaks up real
snappy, 'Nor one that's brought up a family of four boys,' and then
Selina _she_ looked mad." Mary Ann went off into a peal of laughter at
the remembrance.
"Jane told me he said at my age the heart was weak and there was
always more or less danger."
"He always says that after he's told what good sound lungs you have,
and what steady progress you're making, and how he'd rather pass you
for insurance than most women half your age. It means we're not to be
too reckless, all the same."
"She says if I _should_ recover from this attack----"
"Sakes alive! Did she come over all that with you too? 'If you should
recover from this attack, you'd better sell the house and visit round
among your married children?' Visit round as much as you like, Ma, but
have a house of your own to come back to; that's my advice."
"She said you wouldn't want to keep up a house after you were left
alone----"
Mary Ann threw up her hands. "No wonder Selina'n'Jane are thin--they
wear the flesh off their bones providing for the future. They're born
Colquhouns. I'm glad I take after your side of the family. Do you know
what Selina told me, Ma? The preserves she put up this year won't have
to be touched till winter after next. She has enough to last her over
two years. 'Land sakes!' I said, 'what do you want to eat stale jam
for, when you might have fresh?' The two get competing which will be
furthest ahead in their work; from the way they talk, I shouldn't
wonder if before long their fall house-cleaning would be done in the
spring. It makes me think of what Pa used to tell about his uncle
Alick Colquhoun--how he was earlier and earlier with the milking, till
at last the evening milking was done in the morning, and the morning's
was done the night before. Then there was Eva Meldrum; you remember
she had all her marriage outfit ready before she was asked--sheets,
tablecloths, and everything. As soon as Fred Healey proposed, she got
right to work with the final preparations, and when she found herself
left with nothing else to do--she just sat down and wrote out notes of
thanks for the wedding gifts, leaving blanks for the names of the
articles. I laughed till I was sore when she told me. 'You're a
Colquhoun,' I said, 'though you do only get it from your grandma;
you're a Colquhoun by nature if not by name.' You know I always say it
comes from having such a name. It's enough to make an anxious streak
in the family, having to spell it, one generation after another."
Mary Ann laughed so heartily that the sound reached her sisters, who
wondered what "Ma'n'Mary Ann" were at now. And still the little cloud
lingered, and the smile only flitted waveringly.
"I called at the library, Ma, and brought home the magazine. Now we'll
find out for sure whether Lady Geraldine marries the earl--I don't
believe but what she's in love with the private secretary."
"Did you do the shopping?" her mother whispered.
"Yes, and if you feel rested with your sleep, I'll show you what I
got. Mr. Merrill opened out such a heap of pretty things, I didn't
hardly know what to take. I was thinking, Ma, it wouldn't be a bad
idea to have Miss Adams in to sew, the first week you're downstairs,
when we've got to be in the house anyway."
At this moment Jane and Selina came into the room to see what the
sounds of merriment meant. They looked at patient and nurse with
disapproving gloom. Jane settled herself at once to her knitting;
Selina, who never worked in the afternoon when she was wearing her
widow's collar and cuffs, sat regarding her mother with an expression
of grieved wonder. Mrs. Colquhoun was uncomfortably conscious of being
judged by something in her own child of other heritage than hers--one
of the strangest sensations a parent can have.
"You'd ought to be kept quiet, Ma," Selina said, after a prolonged
scrutiny. "If you had any suitable book in the house, I'd read to you.
There was one my poor husband used to listen to by the hour in his
last illness--'Preparations for the Final Journey.'"
"I'm going to run down and fetch that stuff I bought to-day to show it
to Ma and get her opinion," Mary Ann interrupted, and a minute later
she was standing by the bed with the three dress lengths piled in
confusion upon her arms. To the woman in the bed it was as if an angel
looked out from over a tumbled rainbow and smiled a message of hope to
her from the sky.
"Take an end of this tartan, will you, Jane, and stand off a little
with it. There, I knew you'd like it, Ma. I said so to Mr. Merrill the
minute he showed it to me. That flowered piece? That's for a morning
wrapper. I know it's gay, but somehow, after the flowers are all over,
I do hanker after gay colors. In summer I don't feel to want them so
much on my back when I can have them in the garden. The gray-blue's
for a company dress. I'll have it made up in time for the reception to
the new minister. You'll need a dress for that too, Ma. We'll get
samples as soon as you're well enough to choose. It was between this
and a shot silk, but I thought this was more becoming at my age. To
tell the truth," confessed Mary Ann with a laugh, "I'd rather have had
it than this, and more than either I'd love to have bought a dress off
a piece of crimson velvet Mr. Merrill had just got in."
She rested an elbow on her knee and sank the length of a forefinger in
her plump cheek.
"When I was a little girl," she ruminated, "I was awfully fond of the
rose-in-campin' that grew in our garden at home--you mind it, mother;
mullein pink, some call it. I used to say to myself that if ever I
could get what clothes I liked, I'd have a dress as near like that as
I could find. Well, there I was to-day looking at the very thing, the
same color, the same downy look, and all, and money enough in my purse
to buy it. Of course I know it would be silly. But don't it seem a
pity that the things we dream of having some day--when the day comes,
we don't want 'em? I feel somehow as if I'm cheating that little girl
that wished for the dress like a rose-in-campin'."
She began to fold the dress pieces thoughtfully. "Made up handsomely
with a train," she said, half to herself, "and worn on suitable
occasions, it wouldn't seem so silly, either. I believe I'll have that
crimson velvet yet," she concluded, with a laughing toss of the head.
Her mother looked from the bright materials to the bright face above
them.
"She would never have gone and bought all these colors just after the
doctor said I wasn't going to get well," she thought, and turned over
and fell into a real sleep. The last had been feigned--to escape
Jane's disquieting remarks and to ponder their significance.