My grandmother, indeed, explained that there was no question of ladies grey or rain-drops pattering, but of obedience to her legal mistress.
But she knew that the cause was lost, and I am quite sure anticipated the reply of Margaret Simprin Hetherington, which was to the effect that no lass, indoor or outdoor, was more willing to obey her mistress than she, but it would be in the place in which she had been hired to serve—there and not elsewhere.
For once my grandmother was nonplussed. Being a good Galloway woman she knew that of all things it is most impossible to run counter to the superstitions of her people. Perhaps she retained a touch of these herself. But, as she said, “The grace of the Lord can overcome all the wiles of the Evil One! And Mary Lyon would like to see witch or warlock, ghost or ghostling, that would come in her road when she went forth under His banner.” On the darkest night she marched unafraid, conquering and to conquer, having the superstitions born in her, but knowing all the same (and all the better for that knowledge) on which side were the bigger battalions.
It was no use to send my Aunt Jen, who had once been “in a place” before. Aunt Jen would go, but—she would take her tongue with her. She had her mother’s command of language, but was utterly destitute of her tact, lacking also, as was natural, the maternal instinct. As, in a moment of exasperation my grandmother once said of her, “Our Jinnet is dried up like a crab-tree in the east wind!”
She would certainly undo all that Mistress Mary Lyon had done, and “that puir young lassie” (as she called Miss Irma) carried a warlike flash in her eye which warned the rugged grandmotherly heart that she and our Aunt Jen could not long bide at peace in the same house.
My mother might have done, as far as temper was concerned, but she wanted what grandmother called the “needcessary birr.” Besides which she had more than enough to do in caring for her own house, mending my father’s clothes and misinforming the public as to Post Office regulations. On the whole, though she loved her married daughter, I think Mary Lyon was not a little sorry for my father, John MacAlpine, in his choice of a housekeeper. I could see this by the occasional descents she made upon our house, and the way she had of going about the rooms, setting things to rights, silent save for a running comment of soft sniffs upon the nose of contempt—the while my mother, after a sympathetic glance at me, devoted herself to silent prayer that grandmother would not light upon anything very bad.
With my grandmother, to fail in the due ordering of a house was a cardinal sin. And my poor mother sinned, not indeed by intention, hardly even in labour, but in that appearance of easy perfection, which in a household is the result of excellent plans thoroughly and timeously carried out. She was apt to be found late of an afternoon in a chair with a book—and the dinner dishes still unwashed. Then Agnes Anne, my sister, would come in without a word. Her school frock would be quickly shrouded under a great coarse apron. If I happened to be within doors I was beckoned to assist. If not, not—and Agnes Anne did them herself while my mother slept on.
But I do not think that grandmother knew this, for she very generally ignored Agnes Anne altogether, having a decided preference for boys in a family. It fell out, therefore, that when she came a little shamefacedly to consult my father, as she sometimes did in days of difficulty—for under a show of contempt she often really submitted to his judgment—it was given to Agnes Anne to say suddenly, “Let me go to Marnhoul, grandmother!” If Balaam’s ass (or say, Crazy), had spoken these words, grandmother could not have been more astonished.
More so still when John MacAlpine nodded approval.
“Yes, let the lassie go—let her put her hand to the work. The burden cannot be too soon laid on young shoulders—that is, if they are strong enough.”