"Now that the visitors are gone," said Ann, "we'll go on with our wedding number. Who complained of the dullness of the Green Glen? Three visitors—the whole neighbourhood you may say—in one afternoon: first the parson, then the two Miss Scotts. As I came down the burnside I saw them go up to the door, and I said to myself in the words of the old beadle who was asked what sort of congregation was gathering1: 'Graund! Twa weemen pourin' in.' Didn't you like them, Mother? The Miss Scotts, I mean? I thought their weather-beaten faces very attractive, and their voices so surprisingly soft and clear. Somehow I had expected voices rather loud and strident, to go with their workman-like clothes and heavy boots. The younger one specially2 attracted me—they way she beamed through her spectacles and said 'Yes' unexpectedly, whenever a pause occurred in the conversation. They are going to help me a lot with the garden; their own place is lovely. It's a nice happy way to end one's days—living peacefully among growing flowers! Think of all the old women who live in hotels and boarding-houses, quite comfortable, I dare say, so far as fires and light and a good bed, and well-cooked food go, but so barren of all interest except a morbid3 curiosity about their fellow-prisoners! How spacious4 a country life is! ..."
"Oh yes," her mother broke in impatiently; "but hotel life can be very interesting, and there is nothing I enjoy so much as watching my neighbours.... I wonder why Mr. Sharp likes telling funny stories?"
"Shyness goads5 him to it," Ann said. "It's the same thing that makes me chatter6 like a swallow when I am with impressive people and ought to hold my peace. He's a decent lad, Mr. Sharp, but I wish that when I meet him outside he wouldn't treat me like a funeral. He doesn't look at me, but removes his hat when passing. Shyness again, I suppose."
"He has a housekeeper," Mrs. Douglas said, as she picked up a stitch. "It's a pity he hasn't a wife. In a quiet place like this the Manse should be a centre for the district. Don't you think, Ann, if we asked Nina Strachen, or——"
"Mother," said Ann solemnly, "I utterly7 refuse to have anything to do with your matchmaking efforts. Just let your mind dwell for a little on the result of your last."
Mrs. Douglas sighed. "Poor George Reid! But it wasn't marrying killed him. He couldn't have got a better wife than Jeanie Robb. The doctors said the trouble had been going on for a long time, and, anyway, the last months of his life were as comfortable as they could be made. If he hadn't married he would have been dependent on fremt women, for he hadn't a soul of his own; and Jeanie gets the Widows' Fund, so you can't regret the marriage having taken place."
"Practical woman!" laughed Ann. "But we must get on with your own wedding now—we are making no progress at all. When I think of what Hugh Walpole or Compton Mackenzie can make out of somebody's childhood, I blush for my few bald sentences. About your wedding—did my grandmother choose your things? When I knew her she took very little interest in clothes, just wore whatever was brought to her."
"Ah, but she wasn't always like that. I remember Agatha and myself almost in tears begging her not to get a purple silk dress and bonnet8 which she much desired, as we thought them absurdly youthful for her years. Poor body! I don't believe she was more than forty. Daughters can be very unfeeling."
"They can," Ann agreed, with a twinkle. "My poor grandmother! What a shame to deprive her of her purple silk! If you and Aunt Agatha could have looked forward forty years and seen grandmothers with dresses almost to their knees, dancing, playing tennis, frivolling, hardly recognisable from the eighteen-year-olds, I wonder what you would have thought. Well, who did buy your trousseau? Aunt Agatha?"
"No, she was less sophisticated even than I was. My stand-by was Miss Ayton. My mother trusted her judgment9 and her taste and asked her help, and Miss Ayton was only too willing to give it; for, spinster of fifty as she was, she loved a marriage. She was one of those delightful10 women who can be vividly11 interested in their neighbours' business without ever being a nuisance, and she presided like a stout12, benign13 fairy over my nuptials14, getting things done, it seemed, by a wave of her wand."
Mrs. Douglas let her knitting fall on her lap, and lay back in her chair, smiling.
"First I was whisked off to Edinburgh to have some lessons in cooking (I knew absolutely nothing about anything). High-class cooking it was called, I suppose because nearly every recipe called in the most casual way for a dozen of eggs and a bottle of sherry. Not the sort of cooking required for a manse, you will say...."
Ann looked up from her writing. "Hadn't you—I seem to remember—a cookery book from that class, a fat green book? It stood, for some reason, on the nursery bookshelf, and was a sort of Aladdin's Cave to us children. We pored over it, reading aloud the rich, strange ingredients, and lay on our faces gazing enraptured15 at the picture of a dinner-table laid for about sixty people, where each napkin was folded in a different way, and pheasants with long tail-feathers sat about in dishes, and brightly tinted16 jellies and creams and trifles made it blossom like a fairy garden. That picture always made us so hungry that we had to have 'a piece' all round after looking at it.... Why do I connect that cookery book with Communions?"
Mrs. Douglas laughed. "Because at Communion times, when we had strange ministers assisting we had puddings out of that book, at least expurgated editions of them. I have that book in my room now. It is too much a bit of my past for me ever to part with it. It has been with me since the start. At first it was all that stood between me and blank ignorance, and now it is a reminder17 of the days that seem like a happy dream. Well, the book and the cookery lessons were due to Miss Ayton. Or, was it Mrs. Watts18 first suggested I should learn cooking? I believe it was. There was never anyone so practical as Mrs. Watts, dear woman. I always regret that she was gone before you grew up, Ann; you would have delighted in her. She was a daughter of the great Dr. Grierson—that mighty19 preacher and statesman—and she had much of the Grierson charm. Her husband, Dr. Watts, was laird as well as minister, and they didn't live at the Manse, but at their own place, Fennanhopes. It was about the greatest treat we had as children, to be invited to Fennanhopes, and I can't think why we liked it so much, for whenever we arrived Mrs. Watts would say, 'Now, friends,' and in a trice she had us all working hard. Some picked currants, some went to bring in the eggs, some weeded—but we all did something. We wouldn't have done it for anyone else, but we liked to please Mrs. Watts. She kept everybody busy: visitors (the house was always full), village, the whole countryside, and there is no doubt that the state of being pleasantly busy is the best we can attain20 to in this world. Mrs. Watts was a noted21 housewife, and servants trained by her were eagerly sought for. I remember going, during one Assembly time in Edinburgh, to a meeting at which Mrs. Watts was to speak. One knew what to expect as a rule—a rather gasped-out, tepid22 little homily from the wife of one or other well-known divine; but I rather thought Mrs. Watts would be different. I waited with interest, and presently she stepped on to the platform, looking so big and fine and of the open air, spoke23 for a few minutes in her clear, round voice, and then, looking round the meeting with friendly eyes she said, 'Now, friends, I am going to tell you how to make really good coffee.'"
Ann laughed. "What a dear! I wish I had known her. I can just remember Dr. Watts. It seemed to me, standing24 somewhere about his knees, that his head must be dangerously near the clouds, and I remember his gentle voice saying to me, 'It will take you a long time to grow as big as I am.' ... Yes, and so between Mrs. Watts and Miss Ayton you learned something about cooking. And who chose your trousseau, and all your 'providing'?"
"Miss Ayton, really, but of course my mother was there too, and I was there, though I don't think I was supposed to have an opinion. You would laugh at my things now, but they were considered very handsome—the best that could be had at Kennington & Jenner's."
"What! Was Jenner's in Princes Street in those days?" cried Ann, astonished.
"Dear me, why shouldn't Jenner's have been in Princes Street then? Really, Ann, you talk as if it were before the Flood. I assure you my clothes caused something of a sensation in the countryside."
"I'm sure they did. I knew you had a sealskin coat, for it ended its long and useful existence as capes25 for Robbie and me. I liked mine, but Robbie wept bitterly, and said only coachmen wore capes. And you had a bonnet, hadn't you? A bonnet at seventeen!"
"A prune-coloured bonnet," said Mrs. Douglas, "high in front, and worn with a prune-coloured silk dress and the sealskin coat. Those were my 'going-away' things. But the dress your father liked best was navy blue, what was called a Princess dress, buttoned straight down with small brass26 buttons. I had a sort of reefer coat to wear with that, and a hat with a blue veil. And I had a black satin for evenings (no self-respecting bride would have been without a black satin) besides my bridal white satin."
"You must have looked a duck with those little white kid shoes with the big rosettes on the toes and the blue silk laces. I suppose you were married in the house?"
"Oh yes. Church weddings were practically unknown then. I was married in the drawing-room. Do you remember it? Rather a gloomy room, and not often used. The partition between the dining-room and the room next it was taken down, and the luncheon27 was laid on long tables. People came from Priorsford the day before and cooked and made ready. It had been a terrible storm, and the drifts were piled up high, but I don't think any of the invited guests stayed away, although many of them had long distances to drive. The preparations were very exciting. I remember the great rich cakes from Edinburgh being cut down with a lavish28 hand, and big, round, thick cakes of shortbread with white sweeties on them, so the guests must have had tea as well as luncheon, and been well warmed and fed. Rather unlike our modern weddings, with a crumb29 of bridescake and a thimbleful of champagne30, followed by a cup of tea and a sandwich. Hare soup, and roasts of all sorts, and creams and trifles galore. I was child enough to enjoy it all."
"I can just imagine," she said, "how jolly it must have been. The comfortable old house in the village street, all the rooms with blazing fires, and the kitchen with the flagged, uneven32 floor, hot and simmering with good things cooking, and the snow outside, and the horses stamping in the cold, frosty air, and the guests coming in laughing and talking. And Father so young and tall and blue-eyed, and you such a nice little white and gold bride, blue-eyed, too (no wonder there is such a lamentable33 lack of variety in the looks of your children; I do admire a family where some are dark, and some fair, and some red-haired—it isn't so dreadfully monotonous), and the bridesmaids in white with scarlet34 berries, and your little brothers all agape for good things. It must all have been so young and merry. A good send-off to a very happy married life, eh, Mother?"
Mrs. Douglas looked at her daughter without speaking, the tears slowly gathering in her eyes. Ann bent35 forward and laid her hand on her mother's. "Just say to me as Marget says, 'Oh, lassie, haud yer tongue!' I know that is what you are feeling like. It breaks your heart to look back. There has been so much happiness and such great sorrow; but the sad bits are as precious as the happy bits, and they all help to make the pattern. On the whole a gay pattern, Mother."
"Oh yes, yes. I have had far beyond my deserts. For many years life was almost cloudless, except for the clouds I made with my own foolish fears and forebodings. Why did nobody shake me for my silliness? Fussing over trifles, worrying about the congregation, feverishly36 trying to lay by for an evil day. I wonder now how I could ever have made a trouble of anything when I had your father with me and all my children about me. And I knew I was happy, but I daren't say it even to myself, in case I brought disaster. What pagans we are at heart—afraid of envious37 fates! And then Rosamund died.... We thought we could never be happy again—but we were. It was never quite the same again; we walked much more softly, for the ground seemed brittle38 somehow, and the sorrow of the world came closer to us, and we went with a different understanding to the house of mourning—but we were happy. I think I must often have been very trying to my friends during those prosperous years. They talked of 'the Douglas luck,' for everything the boys tried for they seemed to get. And the educating being over we had more money in our hands, and you got about to see the world, and we could all go abroad at a time, and I could spend some money on the house—I always made a god of my house. How proud I was of my drawing-room when we got the green velvet39 carpet that was like moss40, and the soft blue walls and hangings, and the big Chesterfield with the down cushions! And the tea-table set out with plates and green knives, while the people round were still handing their visitors a cup in their hand, and cake and scones41 on a cake-stand! I was a queen and no widow.... Why, Marget, is it nine o'clock already?"
Marget gave her demure42, respectful curtsey, which was so oddly at variance43 with her frank and fearless comments on things in general, and sat down on a chair beside Mysie.
"Ay, Mem, it's nine o'clock. It's juist chappit on the lobby clock." She directed a suspicious glance towards the table where Ann sat. "Is Miss Ann gettin' on wi' yer Life? Dinna let her put in ony lees aboot us. How faur has she gotten? Juist to yer marriage? Oh, that's a' richt. I wasna there then. But I can keep ye richt aboot what happened ony time in the last five-and-thirty years."
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1
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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morbid
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| adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的 | |
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spacious
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| adj.广阔的，宽敞的 | |
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goads
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| n.赶牲口的尖棒( goad的名词复数 )v.刺激( goad的第三人称单数 )；激励；（用尖棒）驱赶；驱使（或怂恿、刺激）某人 | |
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chatter
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| vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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benign
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| adj.善良的，慈祥的；良性的，无危险的 | |
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nuptials
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| n.婚礼；婚礼( nuptial的名词复数 ) | |
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enraptured
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| v.使狂喜( enrapture的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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tinted
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| adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词 | |
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reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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watts
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| （电力计量单位）瓦，瓦特( watt的名词复数 ) | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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tepid
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| adj.微温的，温热的，不太热心的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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capes
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| 碎谷； 斗篷( cape的名词复数 )； 披肩； 海角； 岬 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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crumb
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| n.饼屑，面包屑，小量 | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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lamentable
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| adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的 | |
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scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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feverishly
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| adv. 兴奋地 | |
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envious
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| adj.嫉妒的，羡慕的 | |
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brittle
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| adj.易碎的；脆弱的；冷淡的；(声音)尖利的 | |
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velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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scones
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| n.烤饼，烤小圆面包( scone的名词复数 ) | |
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demure
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| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
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variance
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| n.矛盾，不同 | |
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