Anna and Her Daughters

by D. E. Stevenson

  Helen had been teasing me about something I had said. “You’ll be saying ‘odds bodikins’ next!” she declared.

  Then Mother said, “Don’t you think you ought to give it up, Jane? You only went temporarily to oblige her while her wrist was in plaster.”

  “Oh no, it’s fascinating. I couldn’t possibly give it up.”

  “You could help me in the house”

  “Mrs. Gow is far more help than I was,”

  “It’s changing you,” said Helen.

  “I’m growing up, that’s all. You ought to be pleased. You always said I was too young for my age. I’m learning things.”

  “What sort of things?” asked Mother anxiously.

  “I’m learning about the world. I’m learning how to write a book. I’m learning history far better than I ever learnt it at school.”

  “How to write a book!” exclaimed Helen scornfully. “That will be useful! I suppose you intend to write a book yourself.”

  I said nothing. I knew I was no match for Helen in this sort of argument.

  “Honestly, Jane, I wish you would give it up,” repeated Mother. “We know nothing about Mrs. Millard — or at least very little.”

  It was obvious that Mother had heard something about her — something not to her credit — but I did not care. I was absolutely determined not to give up my post as long as Mrs. Millard would keep me. I had told Mother that I was growing up and learning about the world and this was true, but my daily contact with Mrs. Millard was teaching me more than that. It was teaching me how to talk to people and not be frightened. It was giving me confidence in myself.

  *

  There were various changes in the family arrangements during the winter. Cousin Margaret asked Helen to stay for a few days and go to some parties. Of course Cousin Margaret knew scores of people in Edinburgh so Helen had a very good time. She went to a ball with her host and hostess and danced all night with handsome young men in kilts and enjoyed herself tremendously. I gathered that Cousin Margaret had enjoyed it too and had looked quite marvellous in black velvet and diamonds. It would have been interesting to know if Helen had met Ronnie — the young man with the brown hair — but she did not mention him and I could not ask. For one thing I did not know his name and for another I had no wish to be questioned about him. Helen would have wanted to know where I had met him and what he was like, and she would have given me no peace until she had got the whole story out of me.

  In addition to the ball at the Assembly Rooms (which had been the high-light of her visit to Edinburgh) Helen had been to a cocktail party and a very amusing play. It had all been so enjoyable and everybody she met had been so friendly that she wanted us all to move to Edinburgh forthwith … She did her best to persuade Mother to sell Timble Cottage and buy a little house in Murrayfield which happened to be for sale at the time.

  There was a great deal of argument about it (if you can call it an argument when one person talks incessantly and the other says, “No, Helen,” in gentle accents) but at last Helen saw it was hopeless and gave it up.

  Soon after that Helen found herself a job in Edinburgh — and off she went. The job was that of a receptionist at a big hotel and it suited Helen admirably; she arranged the flowers and received the guests and made herself generally useful. Occasionally she came down for a week-end to Timble Cottage and we heard all about her doings — about the dances she had been to and the friends she had made. Mother was a little worried for she was afraid Helen would find it much too tiring, but she assured Mother that she never felt better in her life. “Edinburgh is so bracing,” she declared. “Edinburgh suits me.”

  Timble Cottage felt quite different when Helen had gone. Helen had been cross and miserable and had done nothing but grumble about everything from morning to night. It felt as if a cloud had lifted when she went away.

  When Rosalie heard about all the gay parties she thought that she would like a job in Edinburgh. She talked about it a lot but took no steps to find one — which was just like Rosalie. Mother said nothing, either for or against.

  “Why don’t you want Rosalie to get a job?” I asked her.

  “I do want Rosalie to get a job — she would be much happier with something to do — but I don’t want her to go to Edinburgh with Helen,” replied Mother.

  I thought I saw what Mother meant; Helen was such a strong character that she dominated Rosalie. It had always been the same: when Helen was absent Rosalie was herself — sweet and kind and helpful — but when Helen was there she seemed a different person. Curiously enough their attitude to each other varied; sometimes Rosalie did what Helen told her without demur and at other times she would assert herself and argue stubbornly about things that did not matter at all. I had often wondered why this should be so but had never found a satisfactory solution to the problem.

  “I want Rosalie to have a life of her own,” continued Mother. “She has suffered all her life from being ‘like Helen’. Even when she was four years old people used to say, ‘She’s like Helen, of course, but not so pretty’. That’s a dreadful thing, Jane. It would be better if Rosalie were not pretty at all than just a not-quite-so-pretty copy of Helen.”

  “But Rosalie is a very pretty girl!”

  “Yes, she’s a very pretty girl — until you see Helen,” said Mother. “And that’s the reason I don’t want her to go to Edinburgh — with Helen.”

  Mother’s ideas and mine were almost the same but she had given me one new idea to think about. I had often wished I were like my elder sisters, with fair hair and blue eyes and a rose-petal complexion, but according to Mother I ought to be thankful that I was not; according to Mother it was better to be ‘not pretty at all’ than to be a ‘not-quite-so-pretty’ copy of someone else.

  Having said that Rosalie would be ‘much happier with something to do’ Mother proceeded to make inquiries about a job in Ryddelton and discovered that Mrs. Ferguson, the doctor’s wife, wanted somebody to go to her daily and help her in the house and look after the children. Rosalie was fond of children and very good at managing them so it sounded just the thing. At first Rosalie refused to consider it and said it was not the sort of job she wanted and she would rather go to Edinburgh, but Mother persuaded her to try it and see how she got on. Fortunately it was a great success; the Fergusons were so kind that she soon made friends with them and became devoted to the children. Indeed we heard so much about Deb and Sally that we began to get a little bored with them — or at least I did. Mother was much more patient. Mother was delighted with the success of her experiment and was willing to listen for hours while Rosalie held forth about the amusing things they did and said. One afternoon we had Deb and Sally to tea at Timble Cottage and they certainly were dear little creatures. Then we had the Fergusons to supper.

  I had met Dr. Ferguson several times when he came to The Corner House to see Mrs. Millard about her wrist. He was thirty-five — big and friendly with fair hair and blue eyes. He was very popular in Ryddelton; his patients said you had only to look at Dr. Ferguson and you felt better. I could well believe it. Mrs. Ferguson was small and dark with bright brown eyes — not exactly pretty but attractive and amusing.

  The supper party was a great success. It was one of those happy occasions when everything goes right. Rosalie was at her best, I had never seen her look so happy. By this time she knew the Fergusons well and called them Kenneth and Jean, so it seemed natural for us all to do the same. They stayed quite late, sitting round the fire and chatting about one thing and another, and before they left they invited us to go and have supper with them.

  Kenneth was busy of course; it was not easy for him to get away, and quite often he was called out to an urgent case in the middle of a meal, but in spite of this we saw a great deal of the Fergusons, it was the beginning of a very pleasant friendship for us all.

  Chapter Eight

  Mrs. Millard spared no pains to have every smallest detail of her book correct. She had said it was just a job and she did it fo
r money but it was much more to her than that. In February she suddenly decided that she must go to London and do some research at the British Museum which meant that I had a holiday until she returned.

  Unfortunately my holiday coincided with Mother’s visit to Murrayfield Gardens; it had been arranged weeks before that she would stay with Cousin Margaret and Cousin Andrew in February and go to a series of concerts which were taking place in the Usher Hall. She had been looking forward to it, I knew, and when she said she would put it off I refused to let her. There was no object in putting it off. Rosalie came home every evening and I did not mind being in the house alone.

  For the first few days I enjoyed my holiday immensely. I made sandwiches and put them in my pocket and walked miles over the hills. It was a pleasant feeling to be free to do as I wanted — a feeling I had never experienced before. I remember one day particularly. There had been frost in the night and there was rime on every twig of faded heather like diamonds glittering in the bright morning sun. In every little burn there were icicles hanging from the rocks. The sky was blue and cloudless and there was not a breath of wind. It seemed wonderful to me. I walked along slowly, enjoying every moment. I enjoyed the beauty, I enjoyed breathing the still, cold air, but most of all I enjoyed the silence. The silence was absolute, not a sound broke it, even the burns had ceased to prattle over their stony beds … and I realised what R.L.S. had been thinking of when he wrote of the essential silence that ‘chills and blesses’ in the hills of his home. The silence blessed me so beautifully that every unworthy thought was banished and I felt happy and at peace with all the world.

  After that marvellous day the weather broke and it was wet and unpleasant and stormy so I could not go out on the hills. There was very little to do in the house and I missed my work with Mrs. Millard. I thought of her quite a lot and wondered how she was getting on — and when she would come back. I had not realised before how much I liked Mrs. Millard.

  It was so tedious doing nothing that I decided to try my hand at writing a story just for my own pleasure and to while away the time (as a matter of fact the idea would never have occurred to me if Helen had not put it into my head) so I bought a large exercise-book in the town and started off.

  Needless to say the story was set in a bygone age; I was so steeped in the days when Esmeralda was alive that the background was filled in already — or perhaps it would be more true to say that the stage was set and the scenery in place — all I needed was the plot and the characters. I went to sleep thinking about it and woke in the morning with my mind full of ideas. My heroine was not Esmeralda but her opposite in every way, she was a gentle little creature caught up in the tangle of the plot — not brave by nature but capable of courage in defence of the man she loved. Esmeralda had been fickle and ruthless, Agnes was faithful and kind.

  At the time I was perfectly certain that my conception of Agnes owed nothing whatever to Esmeralda, but now I see that it owed her a great deal for I had merely taken the naughty lady and, turning her inside out, had produced my paragon — but that is by the way and does not matter except to show how little we understand the workings of our subconscious minds.

  The story took shape as it went along and when Mrs. Millard returned I was in the throes of it. Mother returned too, looking very much the better for her holiday. Of course I was delighted to see her but it meant I had very little time to write. I was determined to say nothing about the story until it was finished and perhaps not even then. It all depended upon whether I was satisfied with what I had done. This being so, the only time to write was at night and the only place was my queer little bedroom with the sloping roof. I wrote by the light of an oil-lamp but this was no handicap, for an oil-lamp was the right sort of light for the story, and the shadows it threw in the corners of the strangely-shaped attic stirred my imagination. My wallpaper-birds kept me company; sometimes when I looked up from my work they seemed to be hopping about and peeping at me as they had done the first morning.

  *

  Mrs. Millard was away much longer than she expected; she had browsed in the manuscript room of the British Museum and had found all sorts of curious documents connected with the period, which linked up with passages in the letters and clarified them. She was delighted, of course, but it meant that parts of the book which already were written had to be altered and rearranged. I had a feeling that if this went on the book would never be finished at all — but it was no business of mine. My business was to sort out Mrs. Millard’s notes and copy them and there was so much to do that sometimes I stayed and had lunch with Mrs. Millard and we worked all the afternoon.

  In addition to the notes Mrs. Millard had brought a box of jewellery which had been in the bank. One morning when I went in she had opened it and was examining its contents; there were brooches and bracelets and a necklace of emeralds and diamonds and a string of curious-looking grey beads.

  “I had almost forgotten these,” she said. “What shall I do with them? They’re no use to me.”

  “You could sell them. Mother got a lot of money for her jewellery.”

  “Yes, that would be the sensible thing to do. I’m not likely to wear them again.”

  I wondered when and where she had worn all those glittering ornaments. I still knew nothing about her past.

  “You can’t see me wearing them, can you?” she said, smiling (one of the odd things about her was that she seemed to be able to read my thoughts).

  “Oh, I don’t know —” I began uncomfortably.

  She took up the necklace and fastened it round her neck over her grey woollen frock. “There,” she said. “Shall I wear it like that when I walk down Ryddelton High Street? People here think I’m mad already so it wouldn’t make much difference. Mad and bad — that’s what they say, isn’t it, Jane?”

  “Not to me,” I told her. “I wouldn’t believe it if they did.”

  She looked at me with a curious expression and said, “No, I don’t think you would. Oh well, I wasn’t as gay and naughty as Esmeralda but some of my experiences would shock you considerably.”

  “Shock me!”

  “But I’m not going to tell you about them because Mother wouldn’t like it,” said Mrs. Millard, laughing.

  (So far Mother and Mrs. Millard had never met. I wanted them to meet because I was sure they would appreciate each other and I had tried to bring it about. After a great deal of persuasion Mother had asked Mrs. Millard to tea — but Mrs. Millard refused. “You’ve made her ask me,” Mrs. Millard said. “Fortunately I’ve got more sense than to go. Tell Mrs. Harcourt that I am desolated but I have a previous engagement of long standing.”)

  All this passed through my mind in a flash and I said, “You’re wrong about Mother. I wish you could meet her. I know you’d like each other —”

  “The conviction does more credit to your heart than your head,” said Mrs. Millard dryly.

  I had no idea what she meant, but when she spoke like that I knew it was no use asking.

  She was still wearing the diamond necklace (she had forgotten it of course) and it looked so odd over her grey woollen frock that I reminded her about it.

  “Oh yes, of course,” she said, and she took it off and put it on the table. “I shall sell it,” she added. “I shall sell everything except the pearls.”

  “Pearls!” I exclaimed in surprise. I saw no pearls amongst the collection of jewellery.

  “The poor things are sick,” said Mrs. Millard, taking up the string of grey beads and looking at it sadly. “Pearls go sick if you shut them up for years in a little box; that’s why they look so queer.”

  They looked so queer that I could hardly believe they were pearls. I wondered why she had shut them up for years and let them get like that. I wondered why she did not wear them.

  “Shall I tell you about it?” she asked. “I’ve never told anybody — not a creature. It’s a story about old unhappy far-off things and battles long ago. You see, Jane, these pearls were given to me by someone
I was very fond of. He wanted to give me something beautiful and valuable, something that I could wear always, so he bought the string of pearls. He couldn’t afford them for he was young and hadn’t much money but he didn’t care. It was a sort of — a sort of gesture. In giving me the pearls he was giving me everything he possessed. He fastened them round my neck and said, ‘with all my worldly goods I thee endow’. Then he went away and I never saw him again. He was killed at Mons.”

  I was silent. There was nothing I could say.

  “Of course I meant to wear them always — night and day — but after a few months they began to lose their colour, they began to look dull and lifeless, so I took them to a jeweller and asked what was the matter with them and he said they were sick. He said I ought never to wear pearls. He said pearls should be worn on a soft moist skin — my skin is dry and acid — he said if I continued to wear them they would be completely spoiled. I didn’t believe him, it sounded like nonsense, but I went to another jeweller — a man who specialised in pearls — and he said exactly the same. Pearls like a soft warm skin and fresh air and sunshine and they like to be steeped in sea-water every now and then.”

  “You couldn’t wear them! You couldn’t do as he wanted! How dreadful!” I exclaimed.

  She nodded. “Yes. That was the trouble. That was what made me so miserable. I couldn’t do as he wanted.” She was silent for a few moments and then she continued in a different tone of voice. “I ought to have sold them. The jeweller advised me to sell them. It was sensible advice, but I didn’t feel like being sensible just then. I couldn’t wear them and I didn’t want to sell them so I put them away in a box — and they went from bad to worse. It’s a silly story, isn’t it, Jane?”

  “No, not silly,” I murmured.

  “I believe you’re as silly as I am,” said Mrs. Millard smiling rather sadly. “You’re a sentimental young woman, I’m afraid. You mustn’t be sentimental; it’s a sure road to a broken heart. It’s ever so much better to be tough and callous — and a little bit selfish.”