Ann and Her Mother

by O. Douglas

"Oh, Ann, you always saw far too much. That's all nonsense about the things we made. Everything was excellent and very cheap, and the women in the district enjoyed the lectures amazingly, and constantly asked to have them repeated. I enjoyed them myself. Anything to do with cooking interests me, and I read every recipe I see."

"You are the sort of guest, Mother, who would appreciate a cookery book in her bedroom. It seems an odd taste to me. I can make porridge, smooth and soft, with no knots, and fry quite nice bacon and eggs, and I can make some rather smart meringuey puddings, and there I end. D'you remember how difficult it was to get Davie to eat when he was tiny? I had to feed him with every meal, or I don't think he would have eaten anything. He was such a thin little slip of a thing—like an elf. At one time I got so desperate about his thinness that I took to rubbing him all over every night with olive oil. What a mess it made of everything! We took tremendous care of him, didn't we? He never went out in his pram with only the nursemaid; I generally went, too, in case anything happened to him. It's a wonder to me that we didn't spoil him utterly."

"He was a dear, ugly wee laddie," Mrs. Douglas said. "When Mark came down from Oxford he used to sit and study him from the other side of the table, and say, 'How has that child acquired such a Mongolian cast of countenance?''

"It was too bad," said Ann, "and Davie so admiring of Mark and all his Oxford friends. He used to amuse them a lot. I once overheard him explain to a man how he happened to live with us. 'I was playing quite quietly in heaven one day when God came up to me and said, "Peter, you've to go and live with the Douglases." I said, 'The Douglases! Good Lord!' The weary boredom in his voice was delightful."

"Many a fright he gave me," said Davie's mother. "He picked up the most extraordinary expressions, and seemed to know when to use them with the most disastrous effect. By the time Davie was born I had grown tired of training, besides it was impossible to do anything with him when you older children, who should have known better, laughed at and encouraged him. He was a plaything to you all."

"Yes," said Ann; "there's something about the baby of a family that's different. The youngest never grows up, and to each of us Davie seemed almost more a son than a brother, and we never lost for him—even when he was grown up and a soldier—the almost passionate tenderness that we had for the little delicate boy. He was the delight of our lives, always. I remember when I arrived in India almost the first thing Robbie wanted to be told was Davie's latest sayings. He had a name for each of us peculiarly his own. Nobody ever called me 'Nana' but Davie, and why he christened Jim 'Ney' no one ever knew. But, Mother, it was only as a baby that he was so very plain. Later he developed a sort of horsey look, and we dressed him in a 'horsey' way, with a snooty bonnet and a fawn overcoat. I remember he got a very neat suit to go to a party at Anthony's house, his first real party—brown with a corduroy waistcoat—which he described in imitation of Mark and his friends as 'me blood waistcoat'—and short, tight trousers. As we dressed him we noticed that the shirt he was wearing had been patched at the elbow, but it was clean, and we didn't change it. When he came home he told how this one had sung and that one had recited, and 'What,' we asked, 'did you do?' 'Oh, me,' said Davie, 'I only took off my coat and showed them my patched shirt.'"

"It didn't matter at Anthony's house," Mrs. Douglas said; "the Cochranes were well accustomed to the vagaries of small boys. Anthony and Davie made a funny couple. Anthony was so solemn and fat, and so ashamed of Davie's eccentric behaviour. Davie's way of telling himself stories 'out loud,' and going round the room gesticulating wildly, really shocked Anthony, who was a most self-contained child. He never showed surprise, indeed he rarely ever showed emotion of any sort. When he and Davie were very small and met outside, each took off his hat to the other and made a low bow. At the first party we gave for Davie, the child was greatly excited, and talked without ceasing, jumping up and down in his chair. Anthony was sitting next him at the tea-table in a green velvet suit, and he stood this Jack-in-the-box behaviour as long as he could, then he turned very quietly, slapped Davie's face and resumed his tea without having said a word. And Davie bore him no ill-will; they were fast friends from that moment. D'you remember the two going alone to a party in a cab, and they were so thrilled about it that—we were told afterwards—they refused to do anything but sit in the hall and wait for the cab coming back?"

"I loved Anthony," said Ann. "He took things so calmly and was so speechless. One afternoon when he was with us people began to flock up to his front door, carriages and motors arrived, and we called to him to come and tell us what occasion this was. Anthony looked at the commotion for a minute, and then said, 'It must be a party,' and not another word passed his lips. One night we said 'Anthony will recite.' He said neither yea nor nay, and we led him into the middle of the room. Still he made no protest, but stood, drooping like a candle in the sun, while large tears coursed quietly down his face. It must have been good for Davie to have such a phlegmatic friend. But I've seen Anthony wakened to enthusiasm. I came home once full of Cyrano de Bergerac, and, of course, told Davie all about it—I was so pleased when I heard Davie say after he was grown up, 'It was Nana made me like poetry'—and it became his favourite game. He and Anthony would crouch behind the sofa, 'behind the walls at Arras,' and then jump wildly up shouting, 'Cadets of Gascony are we...' Mother, I think you and I could talk for weeks on end about Davie...."

The door opened and Marget came in. "It's no' nine o'clock yet," she said; "but Mysie has rin oot doon to the cottages—what wi' the mune and the snaw it's near as light as day—an' I cam' in to speer about your Life, Mem. Hoo's Miss Ann gettin' on wi't?"

"Not very well, Marget," Ann answered for herself. "I'm going to finish it, but it's a much harder job than I expected."