Ann and Her Mother

by O. Douglas

"I dare say not," said Mrs. Douglas. "London shops don't encourage small boys to poke in behind the counter. Miss Smart is so good-natured that her shop is a sort of Aladdin's Cave to all young Priorsford—Ann, have you remembered to put in my Life about Alis and the others being born?"

"Goodness gracious, I have not," cried Ann. "But I haven't got to that time yet, have I? You shouldn't give me unnecessary frights, Mother. Imagine leaving out Alis! Davie would have been annoyed. He was the proudest young uncle—was he thirteen?—and Alis adored him. 'My saucy Uncle Boy' she named him, when she could speak; and they were inseparable. He was a mixture of playmate and kind old Nannie to her. If anyone made Alis cry, in a moment Davie appeared and snatched her up and dried her tears. 'You don't know how I love my Uncle Boy,' I heard her telling some one. 'He's my favourite of men.' No, Davie wouldn't like Alis forgotten."

"I used to hear Alis boast," Mrs. Douglas said, "about her young uncle to Mary Elizabeth, and when Mary came to stay she warned her, 'He is my Uncle Boy, you know, Mary, not yours,' and Mary said nothing until she got Davie alone, then she whispered to him, 'Uncle Boy, will you be my Daddy,' and thought she had scored off poor Alis completely."

"A' the bairns likit Davie," Marget put in. "He had sic a cheery face an' he was aye lauchin'. I've seen me lauch mysel' in the kitchen when I heard him lauchin' up the stairs. He fair hated to be vexed aboot onything. Ye mind when you were ill, Mem, he took it awfu' ill-oot."

"All our troubles began after we left Glasgow," Ann said gloomily. "All those years we had been extraordinary healthy; doctors would have starved if they had had to depend on us. I know I used to look pityingly at sick people and wonder to myself if they wouldn't be quite well if they only made an effort. We talked bracingly about never having people ill in bed in our house. 'We treat our patients on their feet,' we said, with what must have been an insufferably superior air. And then we had been so lucky for so long; the boys got everything they tried for, and everything prospered with us, so I suppose it was time we got a downing; but that didn't make it any easier when it came. We left Glasgow knowing that father's health would always be an anxiety; but we didn't bargain for your crocking up, Mums."

"I'm sure I didn't want to 'crock up' as you call it," said Mrs. Douglas, looking aggrieved.

"Of course you didn't," Ann hastened to soothe her mother's ruffled feelings. Then she began to laugh. "But it was rather like you, Mother, to go and take a most obscure disease! We can laugh at it now because you got better, but we put in a terrible year. First the removing to Priorsford in May—taking the books alone was like removing mountains, though we gave away armfuls to anyone who could be induced to take them—and we were no sooner settled down in our new house than you began to feel seedy. It began so gradually that we thought nothing of it. You looked oddly yellow, and seemed to lose strength; but you said it was nothing, and I was only too glad to believe it. When at last we got the doctor he said you were very seriously ill, sent you to bed, and got a trained nurse."

"Eh, I say," Marget began. "I'll never forget that winter. We juist got fricht efter fricht. It was something awfu'. It was a guid thing we left the new hoose and gaed to live wi' Mr. Jim."

"It was," said Ann; "we needed Jim beside us. Those awful attacks of fever when you lay delirious for days at a time! We dragged you through one turn and got you fairly well, only to see you take another. It was most disheartening. No wonder poor Davie stamped with rage. Doctors and nurses walked in and out of the house, specialists were summoned from Edinburgh and Glasgow. All our money was spent on physicians, and, like the woman in the Bible, you were none the better, but rather the worse. None of them gave us any hope that you would recover. One evening we were told you couldn't live over the night, and Mark and Charlotte came flying up from London, only to find you sitting up knitting a stocking! I never really believed that you wouldn't get better. You weren't patient enough somehow; indeed, my dear, there was nothing of the story-book touch about you at all when you were ill. What a thrawn, resentful little patient you were! You occupied your time when you were fairly well upbraiding me for keeping the house so extravagantly. You said you were sure there was great leakage. I'm sure there was, but I couldn't help it. It took me all my time to nurse you and keep things comfortable in the house and see that Father didn't over-exert himself. Marget's whole time was taken up cooking—illness makes such a lot of extra work—and, fortunately, we had a very good housemaid. But if you didn't shine as a patient, I certainly didn't shine as a nurse. I'm afraid I hadn't the gentle, womanly touch of the real ministering angel, smoothing pillows and such like. I knew nothing about nursing, and you said I heaved hot-water bags at you."

"So you did; but you were an excellent nurse for all that. But, oh, I did feel so guilty keeping you hanging round me. It was more than a year out of your life, just when you would have been having such a good time."