"Oh dear, yes. It was terribly gaunt at first, but before we left it I thought it was pretty nearly perfect. When we got fresh paper and paint, and the wide upper landing and staircase carpeted with crimson, and curtains shading the high staircase window, everyone said how pretty it was. The drawing-room was always a pleasant room, with two sunny windows, and all my treasures (you would call them atrocities) in the way of gilt and alabaster clocks with glass shades, and marble-topped chiffonier, and red rep furniture. But the big night nursery was the nicest room of all, with its row of little beds, each with a gay counterpane! There was a small room opening from it where your clothes stayed, with a bath and a wash-hand basin—a very handy place."
"Yes," said Ann; "and in one corner stood a very tall basket for soiled clothes. I remember Robbie, after hearing of someone's marriage, coming to you and saying so earnestly, 'I'll stay with you always, Mums, and if anyone comes to marry me I'll hide in the dirty-clothes basket.'"
Robbie's mother looked into the dancing flames. "That was always his promise," she said softly, "I'll stay with you always.... It wouldn't have been so bad beginning in a new place, with a new baby (and me so utterly new myself!) if Mark hadn't been so fragile. I daresay he suffered from my inexperience, I almost smothered him with wraps, and hardly dared let him out of the warm nursery, but he must have been naturally delicate as well. He got bronchitis on the smallest provocation, and my heart was perpetually in my mouth with the frights I got. I spent hours listening to his breathing and touching him to see if he felt hot, and I kept your father racing for the doctor until both he and the doctor struck. I was so wrapped up in my baby that I simply never turned my head to look at the congregation; but they understood and were patient. I really was very absurd. Some people gave a dinner-party for us, and your father said I simply must go. On the night of the party I was certain Mark was taking croup, and I could hardly be dragged from him to dress. I was determined that anyway I must be home in good time, and I ordered the cab to come back for us at a quarter to nine! We had hardly finished dinner when it was announced, but I rose at once to go. The hostess, astonished but kind, said on hearing my excuses, 'Ah, well, experience teaches.' 'Finish your proverb, Mrs. Smeaton,' my dinner neighbour (a clergyman from a neighbouring parish) broke in, 'Experience teaches fools.' Now I realise that the man was embittered—and little wonder!—by having tried to make conversation to me for a dreary hour, but at the moment I hated him. When we left Kirkcaple he and his wife were our greatest friends.... There were four houses in our road. The large one nearest the Den belonged to one of the linoleum people, we came next, and then there was a low, bungalow sort of house where the Mestons lived with their three little girls, and at the end of the road lived one of the elders in the church—Goskirk was the name—with his wife and eight sons. How they all got into that small house I know not, but it was always comfortable, and there was always a welcome, and Mrs. Goskirk was the busiest, happiest little woman in Kirkcaple, and a great stand-by to me. 'How's baby to-day?' she would come in saying, every word tilted up at the end as is the accent of Fife. As rich in experience as I was poor, she could soothe my fears and laugh at my forebodings. She prescribed simple, homely remedies and told me not to fuss. She gave me a new interest in life, and kept me happily engaged by teaching me how to make clothes for Mark. Her little boys trotted in and out, coming to show me all their treasures, and going away pleased with a sweetie or a sugar biscuit! They did much to make me feel at home.... When I went back to Etterick in summer I thought Mark was a lovely baby, and that he had a wonderful mother! He wore a pelisse I had made him (under Mrs. Goskirk's eye), cream cashmere, with a wide band of lavender velvet, and a soft, white felt hat with a lavender feather round it. I paid fifteen shillings for the feather and thought it a great price.... For three years we had only Mark, then you and Robbie quite close together. But Mark was never put in the 'stirk's stall'; for you were a healthy, placid baby, and my dear Robbie was just like you. I remember his coming so well. It was a February morning, and Mrs. Perm, the nurse, said: 'Another deil o' a laddie.' She much preferred girls. Robbie was such a caller baby, so fat and good-natured and thriving."
"My very first recollection of Robbie," Ann said, "is in the garden. I think it must have been an April morning, for I remember daffodils, and the sun was shining, and the wind tumbling us about, and Mark said to me that he thought Ellie Robbie meant to run away with Robbie, and that it behoved us to save him. As he told me his terrible suspicions Robbie came down the walk pulling behind him a large rake—a little boy with an almost white head, very blue eyes, and very chubby, very rosy cheeks. I remember we separated him from his rake and Mark dragged us both into the gooseberry bushes, where we lay hid until Ellie Robbie (the suspect) came to look for us, bringing us a treat in the shape of a slice each of brown scone spread with marmalade, and two acid drops. That closed the incident."
CHAPTER VII
On these winter evenings in the Green Glen, when the wind and the rain beat upon the house, and Ann by the fireside wrote down her mother's life, Marget made many errands into the drawing-room to offer advice.
"I think"—said Ann one evening—"I think I must have been horribly neglected as a baby. Everyone was so taken up with Mark they hadn't time to look at me."
Marget was standing in the middle of the room with her hands folded on her black satin apron; she would have scorned to wear a white apron after working hours. She had come in with a list of groceries to be ordered by post, and stood looking suspiciously at Ann and her writing.
"Ye were never negleckit when I kent ye, an' I cam' to the hoose afore ye kent yer richt hand frae yer left. You were a wee white-heided cratur and Maister Robbie wasna shortened."