Margaret Ogilvy | Page 5

even when we were done
with them they reappeared as something else. In the fashion! I must
come back to this. Never was a woman with such an eye for it. She had
no fashion-plates; she did not need them. The minister's wife (a cloak),
the banker's daughters (the new sleeve) - they had but to pass our
window once, and the scalp, so to speak, was in my mother's hands.
Observe her rushing, scissors in hand, thread in mouth, to the drawers
where her daughters' Sabbath clothes were kept. Or go to church next
Sunday, and watch a certain family filing in, the boy lifting his legs
high to show off his new boots, but all the others demure, especially the
timid, unobservant- looking little woman in the rear of them. If you
were the minister's wife that day or the banker's daughters you would
have got a shock. But she bought the christening robe, and when I used
to ask why, she would beam and look conscious, and say she wanted to
be extravagant once. And she told me, still smiling, that the more a
woman was given to stitching and making things for herself, the greater
was her passionate desire now and again to rush to the shops and 'be
foolish.' The christening robe with its pathetic frills is over half a
century old now, and has begun to droop a little, like a daisy whose
time is past; but it is as fondly kept together as ever: I saw it in use
again only the other day.
My mother lay in bed with the christening robe beside her, and I

peeped in many times at the door and then went to the stair and sat on it
and sobbed. I know not if it was that first day, or many days afterwards,
that there came to me, my sister, the daughter my mother loved the best;
yes, more I am sure even than she loved me, whose great glory she has
been since I was six years old. This sister, who was then passing out of
her 'teens, came to me with a very anxious face and wringing her hands,
and she told me to go ben to my mother and say to her that she still had
another boy. I went ben excitedly, but the room was dark, and when I
heard the door shut and no sound come from the bed I was afraid, and I
stood still. I suppose I was breathing hard, or perhaps I was crying, for
after a time I heard a listless voice that had never been listless before
say, 'Is that you?' I think the tone hurt me, for I made no answer, and
then the voice said more anxiously 'Is that you?' again. I thought it was
the dead boy she was speaking to, and I said in a little lonely voice, 'No,
it's no him, it's just me.' Then I heard a cry, and my mother turned in
bed, and though it was dark I knew that she was holding out her arms.
After that I sat a great deal in her bed trying to make her forget him,
which was my crafty way of playing physician, and if I saw any one out
of doors do something that made the others laugh I immediately
hastened to that dark room and did it before her. I suppose I was an odd
little figure; I have been told that my anxiety to brighten her gave my
face a strained look and put a tremor into the joke (I would stand on my
head in the bed, my feet against the wall, and then cry excitedly, 'Are
you laughing, mother?') - and perhaps what made her laugh was
something I was unconscious of, but she did laugh suddenly now and
then, whereupon I screamed exultantly to that dear sister, who was ever
in waiting, to come and see the sight, but by the time she came the soft
face was wet again. Thus I was deprived of some of my glory, and I
remember once only making her laugh before witnesses. I kept a record
of her laughs on a piece of paper, a stroke for each, and it was my
custom to show this proudly to the doctor every morning. There were
five strokes the first time I slipped it into his hand, and when their
meaning was explained to him he laughed so boisterously, that I cried,
'I wish that was one of hers!' Then he was sympathetic, and asked me if
my mother had seen the paper yet, and when I shook my head he said
that if I showed it to her now and told her that these were her five
laughs he thought I