"And now," said Ann, "we're done with Kirkcaple and must tackle
Glasgow. And the Tatler is sitting on my MS., and that won't improve
its appearance. Odd the passion that cat has for paper! Perhaps in a
previous existence it was an editor. If the soul of my grandam might
haply inhabit a bird, the soul of an editor--now he's done it! ..."
She flew to rescue the sheets that the Tatler had scattered on the
floor, while her mother put on large tortoise-shell spectacles and
knelt down to help.
"Don't you think," Mrs. Douglas said, when the sheets had been
rearranged in order, "that you'd better read me what you've written?"
Ann shook her head. "I think not. It's very majestical and not quite
true. You see, if you're writing a _Life_, it's no good making a bald
narrative of it. One has to polish it up a bit for the sake of
posterity. I'm making you a very noble character, I assure you. As
old Mrs. Buchanan said to me, after seeing me in some _tableaux
vivants_, 'My, you were lovely. I didna ken ye.' The children will be
proud to think you were their grandmother."
Mrs. 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."
Mrs. Douglas' face lit up with a smile that made her look almost
girlish. "That coat! I do remember it well. It was 'old gold'
trimmed with plush of the same shade. My father bought it for me. I
met him one day in Princes Street, and I must have looked very shabby,
for he looked me up and down and said, 'Nell, surely the Sustentation
Fund is very low,' and he took me into Jenner's, and got me that coat
and bonnet. He got you a coat, too, and a delicious little astrakhan
cap like a Cossack's. You were the prettiest thing in it, for your
hair curled out under it like pure gold."
"I must have been a picturesque child," said Ann complacently, "for
several times, you remember, artists asked me to sit for them." Then
she laughed. "But I needn't boast about that, for my pride once got a
severe fall. One day, at Etterick, we came on an artist (he turned out
to be someone quite well known) sketching up the burnside. I
obligingly posed myself in the foreground, and--he gave me sixpence to
go away. _And I took it!_"
Mrs. Douglas smiled at the reminiscence, but her thoughts were still
with the "old gold coat."
"It always pays to get a good thing. That coat wore and wore until
everybody got tired of seeing me wear it, and it never really got very
shabby--the bonnet, too."
"I suppose you would be about thirty," Ann said. "You said to us
walking down to church one day that you were thirty, and then you said
you would need to get a new bonnet. I looked at you and thought to
myself: 'I shan't say it, but I'm quite sure it isn't worth while for
Mother to get a new bonnet; she _can't_ live much longer.' I was
shocked to hear that you had attained to such a great age, for I
thought at thirty one was just toppling into the grave. Wasn't Glasgow
a great change from Kirkcaple? 'East is East and West is West, and
never the twain shall meet.'"
"Oh, we hadn't much time to worry over East and West; we had our work
to do. We were very fortunate in getting a suitable house in a nice
district. We might have been miles from a city in that road of decent
grey houses, each in its own quiet garden. And the gardens all opened
into an avenue of beautiful trees that had once been the entrance to
the big house of the district. We couldn't have been more happily
situated, and it was a comfortable house with good-sized rooms
and--what your father specially prized--a well-placed staircase with
shallow steps. It also contained what we had never had before, a
basement flat; but it wasn't as bad as it sounded, for the house was
built on a slope, and the kitchen, though downstairs, was on a level
with the garden."
"We children didn't mind the basement," said Ann; "it was a joy to us,
full of funny corners, excellent for hide-and-seek. One door had the
legend _Dark Room_ painted on it, and was an endless source of
speculation. Could the former tenant have been a Nihilist? or a
murderer? In the bright hours of the morning we liked to dally with
those thoughts, but when the shadows lengthened we told each other that
he was only a man who tried to develop his own negatives. We never
felt in the least cabined or confined in Glasgow. It was a joke
against me for long that when we first arrived I reproved Mark and
Robbie for walking on the garden wall, saying, 'We must be very genteel
now that we live in Glasgow.'"
"You didn't live up to that counsel of perfection, my dear. Anything
less genteel than your behaviour! One of the first things you and Mark
did was to attend a wedding in the avenue--and when I say 'attend,' I
mean you stood outside the gate of the house with a lot of other
abandoned children and shouted, 'Hard up!' when the bride and
bridegroom left without scattering pennies. Jeanie Tod nearly wept
with shame when she told me of it."
"I remember Jeanie Tod," said Ann. "She was small, but very
determined. She had a brother a sailor, and used to let me read his
letters. One of them described the writer riding in a rickshaw, and
finished: 'By Jingo, dear sister, you should have seen your Brother
that Day.' ... It must have been difficult for you, Mother, to leave
friendly Kirkcaple and go to a great city where you knew almost no one.
Weren't you lonely at first?"
"Never for a moment; we just seemed to tumble in among friends."
"The church people, you mean?"
"Oh no--well, of course, they were friends--very dear friends--but you
need outside friends, too. I found three very good ones waiting for me
in Glasgow."
"One was Mrs. Burnett!" said Ann.
"Yes. Mrs. Burnett was my first friend. The day we arrived in the
avenue--we were next-door neighbours--was the funeral day of her eldest
daughter. With most women that would have been an excuse not to come
near us for months, but she came almost at once. She said that it made
a link between us, and that, in a way, our coming helped a little to
fill the blank left by the dear daughter's death. Her kindness and
interest were very grateful to me, a stranger in a strange land, or, as
Marget put it, 'a coo on an unco loan.' It was a great pleasure to run
in for an hour to the Burnetts'; it was such a big, comfortable,
perfectly kept house (the servants had been with them for twenty and
thirty years, and had grown into Mrs. Burnett's dainty ways), and there
was always a welcome awaiting one at any time."
"They had a splendid garden," said Ann, "with a swing and all manner of
amusing things; and I think they really liked having children to tea.
I remember their Hallow-e'en parties!"
"Mrs. Burnett looked like an abbess," Mrs. Douglas said. "She always
wore a soft black dress--cashmere or silk--and a tiny white lace shawl
turned back over her white hair. The style of dress suited her
perfectly, for she was very tall and graceful, and glided rather than
walked. I admired her very much, being so far from dignified myself,
and I used to wonder how she kept so perfectly tidy and unruffled when
I always looked as if I had been in the heart of a whirlwind."
"Oh, Mother!" laughed Ann, "just look at the difference in the two
lives! Mrs. Burnett with her family grown up, a household running on
well-oiled wheels, and a serenity partly natural and partly gained
through long years' experience; you in the very forefront of the
battle, with an incredibly wild and wicked family, a church to run,
small means, and not an ounce of serenity anywhere in your little
active body."
"Well, but now that I have leisure I'm not any more serene," Mrs.
Douglas complained. "But it was comfort unspeakable just to see Mrs.
Burnett, to know that she was near. We used to think that she sat and
wondered what she would send us next, she loved so to give."
"I never smell a hyacinth," said Ann, "but I think of Mrs. Burnett.
She always sent us the very first pot of hyacinths that came out in the
greenhouse."
Mrs. Douglas nodded. "Mrs. Burnett would like to be remembered by
spring flowers. She loved them as she loved all young things. Her one
little grandson, Jimmie, was the same age as Davie. Her great regret
when she was dying was that she wouldn't see the two boys grow up. Ah,
but if she could have known--they didn't grow up very far. Jimmie was
killed at the landing in Gallipoli, and Davie at Arras, when they were
still only little boys."
"You have always been well off for friends, Mother," Ann said, breaking
a silence. "In Inchkeld, in Kirkcaple, Glasgow. It's because you are
such a friendly person yourself."
"Oh, me! I often feel myself a poor creature, with little to give in
return for treasure-houses opened to me."
Ann laughed unbelievingly and said, "I'm bound to admit we have had
some wonderful friends--Miss Barbara Stewart for one. She was one of
your three friends, wasn't she?"
"Indeed she was! Miss Barbara--to say her name gives me a warm feeling
at my heart."
"Miss Barbara," Ann repeated. "What a lot the name conjures up! I
don't know anyone who made more of life. She might have been a lonely,
soured old woman, for she was the very last of her family, wasn't she?
but to the great family of the poor and the afflicted she said, 'You
are my brothers and my sisters.' I wonder how many men in Glasgow owe
their start in life to Miss Barbara? I wonder how many lonely women
died blessing her that it was their own and not a workhouse roof that
covered them at the end? I wonder how many betrayed souls sinking
hopelessly into hell had a succouring hand held out to them by that
sharp-tongued spinster? How did you know Miss Barbara so well? She
didn't belong to the church."
"Not in our time, but all her people had belonged. Miss Barbara had
gone to the other side of Glasgow, and it was too far for her to come.
She always took a great interest; but what good work was she not
interested in? She sat there in her vast, early-Victorian dining-room,
wrapped in innumerable shawls and woolly coats, for she suspected
draughts from every quarter, a tall woman, broadly made, with a large,
strong face. What would I not give now to go into that room and see
those whimsical, shrewd, kind eyes, and feel the wealth of welcome in
those big soft hands as she rose to greet me, with shawls falling from
her like leaves in Vallombrosa. She generally received me with abuse.
'What d'you mean by coming out on such a day? You'll go home with a
chill and bother your poor family by lying in bed. Here--see--sit down
in that chair and hold the soles of your boots to the fire,' all the
time doing things for one's comfort, ringing for tea to be brought in,
kneeling down to make fresh toast. She hated to trouble anyone; it was
almost an obsession with her, the desire not to be a nuisance. She had
a very aged cook, who had been in the Stewart family all her life, and
it was said that Miss Barbara, herself nearly eighty, got up every
morning and carried tea to her before she would let her rise to her
duties."
"Dear Miss Barbara," Ann said, stroking the Tatler's smoke-grey fur,
"she wasn't only good, she was delightfully funny. Her passion for
cats!--not for well-fed, comfortable cats, but for poor, lean, homeless
ones. She used to send me into a butcher's shop to buy a quarter of a
pound of mince-collops, and then down area steps carrying it (the
horrid stuff oozing clammily through the paper) after some terrified
animal that fled from me, paying no attention to my blandishments. She
was utterly unlike the ordinary rich old woman, flattered and kowtowed
to for her money until she thinks she isn't made of ordinary clay. I
don't think Miss Barbara ever gave a thought to herself; she hadn't
time, she was so busy looking after other people."
"In her youth," said Mrs. Douglas, "Miss Barbara was a great worker in
the slums of Glasgow, but when I knew her she wasn't able for that, and
people had to go to her. The clergy waited on her by the dozen, and
everyone else who wanted money for good works, not to speak of many who
were mere cranks and charlatans. Everyone who came was admitted, and
Miss Barbara wouldn't have listened to a word against any of them."
"No," said Ann; "she would have said with Falstaff, 'Tush, man, mortal
men, mortal men'; or, rather, she wouldn't, for she had probably never
heard of Falstaff, and thought that anyone who could read Shakespeare
for pleasure was eccentric almost to madness. If you told her of a
book you had enjoyed, she would say, 'Is it true? No? Well, then----'
But everyone who went to No. 10 got a hearing."
"Everyone got a hearing," said Mrs. Douglas, "and whatever else they
got, you may be sure a good tea was never wanting. Many a tired and
hungry voyager on life's ocean found sanctuary at No. 10. You remember
when I had that bad breakdown, and you were all worn out with me, how
Miss Barbara took me to No. 10 and coaxed and scolded me back to
health! And I was too miserably ill and weak even to pretend
gratitude, and, driving with her, I used to envy all the happy people
walking on their own feet, and one day she said to me, with an amused
twinkle in her eyes, 'Ay, and you never thought to pity the poor folk
in their carriages before.''
"I think she was funniest at Etterick," said Ann. "She kept regretting
all the time the street lamps and pavements, and the sight of Tweed
winding in links through the glens vexed her practical soul. 'What a
waste!' she said; 'couldn't it be cut straight like a canal?' Father's
face! How Miss Barbara would have hated the Green Glen!" She jumped
up to open the door for the Tatler. "He's tired of us. He wants to
try Marget and Mysie. Who was your third great friend, Mother? You
had so many, I'm interested to know which you considered your greatest."
"Mrs. Lang."
"Oh, of course--Mrs. Lang. She's been dead for a long time now."
Mrs. Douglas sighed. "Nearly all my friends are dead."
"Because," said Ann, "you always liked old people best, and made your
friends among women much older than yourself. And now you mourn and
say your friends are nearly all gone, and talk about the elect being
gathered in--but, elect or not, people are apt to be gathered in if
they are over eighty."
Mrs. Douglas sighed more deeply, and, ignoring her daughter's bracing
remarks, said, "I can't care for new friends as I cared for the old;
they can't go back with me. I'm not interested in their talk.... Mrs.
Lang was a very good friend to me at my busiest time. What a capable
woman she was. There was nothing she couldn't do with her hands. When
the boys went to Oxford she practically made their outfits, and made
them beautifully. She used to say that it was a kindness to let her
help, for she had had such a busy life, she simply couldn't rest. I
know now what she meant."
"I remember Mrs. Lang very well," Ann said--"a stately woman who rocked
a little when she walked. She had crinkly white hair parted in the
middle, and keen, blue eyes in a fresh-coloured face. I always think
of her as dressed in a seal-skin mantle trimmed with skunk and a Mary
Stuart bonnet."
Mrs. Douglas laid down her stocking. "Yes. I remember her best like
that. I did like to see her come rocking in at the gate, though
sometimes I was a little afraid of her. Your father used to say she
was a typical Scotswoman of the old school--a type that has almost
disappeared. There wasn't a trace of sickly sentiment about her. She
was a stern, God-fearing woman, with a strong brain and a big heart and
an unbending will. She lived to be nearly ninety, and to the end her
mind was as clear as a bell. In the last letter she wrote to me: 'I go
out for a walk every day, no matter what the weather is, and I am twice
in church every Sabbath.'"
"Didn't Mrs. Lang come from Fife?" Ann asked. "I know there was always
an east windy tang about her! She had nothing of the soft, couthy
Glasgow manner. I was really very scared of her. When she discovered
me hopelessly ignorant (as she was always doing) about something she
thought I should have known all about, like jam-making, she had a way
of saying: 'You amuse me very much,' which was utterly crushing. And
she was very much given to contradicting people flat, generally
prefacing her remarks with 'You will _pardon me_!' delivered like a
sledge-hammer. Well, it's too late to write anything to-night. Marget
and Mysie will be in for prayers in a few minutes, and I've an
interesting book to finish. To-morrow I shall add another stone to the
noble pile I am raising to you--but, no, it can't be to-morrow.
To-morrow I go to Birkshaw for two nights. Mother, why did I say I
would go? I can't bear to leave Dreams for two whole nights."