"It was too youthful for me," Mrs. Douglas said gloomily. "Weddings always depress me, and when it's one of your own it's worse."
"You enjoyed it in spite of yourself," said her daughter. "I know I enjoyed it—one of the seven bridesmaids in pink and silver, and I know Davie enjoyed it, flying about in his kilt. It was his very first visit to London, and we took him to The Scarlet Pimpernel, to a matinée. When we came out into the sunny street after three hours' breathless excitement, he was like an owl at noonday; I think he had forgotten entirely that he lived in the twentieth century. It was hard luck that Robbie couldn't be at the wedding. He was so amused when we wrote to him about Father kissing the bride—kissing was an almost unheard-of thing with us in those days. He wrote: 'To think of my elderly, respectable father kissing his daughter-in-law and jaunting over to Paris! He'll be losing his job one of these days.' We went on to Paris after the wedding and then to the Lakes, and all got more or less seedy. Father and I were the only two who kept quite well, and we had to go and buy hot-water bags for the rest of you. Davie was in Jim's room, and in the middle of the night, feeling ill, he thought he would go and tell me about it, and on his way to my room he saw in the moonlight a statue on the landing, and in his fright he fell down a whole flight of stairs. And none of you could eat the good dinners—it was all very provoking."
"Yes," said Mrs. Douglas; "it is very provoking to pay for meals you haven't eaten. And no sooner did we get home than we were all as hungry as hunters! We had to begin after that to get your clothes ready for going to India."
"That was great fun. I did enjoy getting all the new frocks and the hundred and one things I needed. My bridesmaid's frock made a very pretty evening-dress, and I had a white satin one for my presentation, and a pale green satin that was like moonlight. Robbie was dreadfully given to walking on my train when we went out to dinner; I was usually announced to the sound of the rending of gathers. I wonder if other people find as much to laugh at in India as Robbie and I did? Practically everything made us laugh. I can never be sufficiently thankful that I was allowed to have that six months alone with him. It is something precious to remember all my life.... But the leaving him was terrible. By some wangling he managed to get down the river with me; that gave us a few more hours together. He had just left me, and I was standing straining my streaming eyes after the launch, when another boat came to the side of the ship and a man sprang out and came up to me. It was one of Martyrs' young men, Willie Martin, a clerk in a shipping office, who had watched for my name on the passenger list and had come to say good-bye. It was very touching of him. I expect I reminded him of home."
"His people were so pleased that you had seen him," Mrs. Douglas said. "You had to go the minute you came home and tell them all you could about him. He never came home, poor boy! When war broke out he joined up in India, and was one of the missing."
"I know. A decent laddie he was. When we were in Calcutta Robbie and I invited him to tea one Sunday afternoon, and he came, and was so nice and modest and shy; Robbie was loud in his praises because he went away directly after tea. You see, I had got the names of several young men from Scotland who were in business in Calcutta, and we asked them to tea on Sunday afternoons, when they were free, and Robbie didn't like the ones who sat on and on making no move to go away. Some we had to ask to dinner because they hadn't gone away at eight o'clock!"
CHAPTER XXI
"... It was our favourite occupation, your father's and mine, when we had an hour together by the fire, to dream of the good times we would have when he retired. When we got very tired of plodding along with our faces against the wind, when people seemed indifferent about our efforts and ungrateful, when something we had taken immense pains about proved a failure, when term-time came and family after family whom we had learned to count on moved away to outlying suburbs, leaving gaps that couldn't be filled, your father would say to me, 'Never mind, Nell; it'll be all over some day and we'll get away to the country,' and we would talk about and plan what we would do when we had no longer a congregation to tend. But, inside me, I was always sceptical about the dream ever coming true. I knew he wouldn't leave his work until he had to; and I had visions of going on and on until we were old and grey-headed. One should never let oneself weary in this world, for everything stops so soon."
Ann sat on the fender stool sharpening a pencil, very absorbed in the point she was making. When it was done to her satisfaction she turned round to her mother.