Chapter Eight.
Willie Calderwood.
The name of Willie Calderwood had never been spoken between the sisters since the day when, standing on the high rocks above the Tangle Stanes, they had watched the “John Seaton” making out to sea. Jean was silent for one reason, and May for another; and there were reasons enough that both could see why silence was best, to prevent either of them from feeling such silence strange.
Willie Calderwood had been their companion and their brother’s chief friend in the days when they all played together on the rocks and sands of Portie—in the days before George Dawson had admitted into his heart the thought, that the wealth he had won, and the estate he had made his own, gave his children a right to look higher for their friends than among their less prosperous neighbours. But his children were not of the sort that forget easily, nor were the Calderwoods the sort of friends to be easily forgotten. Willie had always been a leader among them, a handsome, fearless, kindly lad, and he became a hero to them all, when he went to sea and came home to tell of shipwreck first, and then of strange adventures among strange people; of hunger and cold and suffering, and escape at last.
A hero! There were many such heroes in Portie who had suffered all these things and more—old men and men old before their time who had passed their lives in whaling ships on the northern seas; who had been wounded or maimed in battles with northern bears and walruses, and with northern frost and snow; and even they made much of the lad who had begun his battles so early. So no wonder that he was a hero to his chosen companions and friends.
“They were jist a’ bairns thegither,” as Miss Jean had said; but it was during that summer, the last of his mother’s life, that young George lost his heart to bonny Elsie, and it was during that summer too, that the visionary glory that rested on the name of the returned sailor carried captive the imagination of his sister Jean. She did not forget him while she was away from Portie; but when she returned they did not fall into their old friendly ways with one another.
That would have been impossible even if the sad story of George and Elsie had never been to tell; for Jean was a woman by this time, and she was Miss Dawson of Saughleas, and he was but the second mate of a whaling ship; a brave man and a good sailor, but not the equal of the rich man’s daughter as times were now. So they seldom met, and when they did meet, it was not as it used to be in the old times between them. He never sought her out when they met in the houses of their mutual friends, and when the circumstances of the moment brought them together, he was polite and deferential and not at his ease. Jean would fain have been friendly and tried to show it, and not knowing then of her father’s anger, because of his son’s love, she could not but wonder at her ill success.
“Maybe he is like Tibbie Cairnie, and thinks you are set up with London pride,” said May laughing. “If I were you, I would ask him.”
But Jean never asked him, and he was not long in Portie after they returned. But when he came back again it was very much the same. He was at home the greater part of the winter before he sailed with the “John Seaton,” and they met him often at other houses, though he never went to Saughleas. There were times when they seemed to be felling back into their old friendliness, and Jean, who was noted in their small circle for the coolness with which she accepted or rejected the compliments, or the graver attentions of some who seemed to seek her favour, grew gentle and winning, and even playful or teasing, when any movement in the room brought the young sailor to her side.
“She is just the Jean of the old days,” poor Willie said to himself, and he could say nothing better than that. They fell back at such times into the kindly speech of their childhood “minding” one another of this or that happy day when they were “a’ bairns thegither.” They could say little of Elsie who was dead, or of George who was lost, in a bright room with others looking on, but the tears that stood in Jean’s “bonny een” told more than words could have done of her love and sorrow for them both. If she had known all, she might have thought it wise to say nothing; but her words and her wet eyes were as drops of sweet to the lad in the midst of much bitterness. He did not always go home cheered and comforted after the sweetness; but Jean did, telling herself that at last they were friends as they used to be—till they met again, and then the chances were, that her “friend” was as silent and deferential and as little eager, apparently, to seek her company as ever; and she could only comfort herself with the thought that the fault was not hers.
So it went on strangely and sadly enough for a while, and then Jean began to see that though he shunned rather than sought her, he seemed friendly enough with her sister. He seemed to seek her out, and to have much to say to her; and why he should be friendly with May and not with her, she could not easily understand.
“Unless—and even then?” said Jean to herself with a little sinking of the heart.
She did not follow out her thought at the moment, but it came back to her afterwards, and on the high rocks as they watched the departing ship, she thought she saw it all clearly, and that she was content. He was her friend, and if he were May’s lover, he would still be her friend, and all the more because of that, and time would make all things that might hinder their friendship now, clear to them both.
But she did not speak to her sister about this. It was for May to speak to her, she thought at first, and after a while it would not have been easy to speak, and on the whole, silence was best. Then as she listened to her aunt’s story of their brother and Elsie, and of their father’s opposition and anger, she was not sure that silence was best. How much of it May might know, she could not tell; but sooner or later she must know it all, and if there was trouble before her, it would make it none the easier to bear, but all the heavier, the longer the knowledge was kept from her. But she shrank from speaking all the same.
“I will tell her to-night,” she said as she sat by her aunt’s side. But she did not, nor the next, and even on the third night she sat long in the dark when the house was silent, listening to the wind among the trees, and the dull sound of the sea, and the painful beating of her own heavy heart, before she found courage to go into her sister’s room.
“If she is asleep, I will not wake her.”
But May was not asleep. She had been lingering over various little things that she had found to do, and had only just put out her light when her sister softly opened the door. She seemed to sleep, however, as Jean leaned over to listen, but as she turned away, May laughed softly.
“Well, what is it? I dinna think I have done any thing so very foolish to-day—not more than usual, I mean.”
For, in her elder sisterly care for her, Jean thought it wise to drop a word of counsel now and then, and this was the hour she usually chose to do it. She stooped down and kissed her as she turned, a circumstance that did not very often occur between them. For though they loved one another dearly, they were—after the manner of their kin and country—shy of any expression of love or even of sympathy in the way of caresses.
“Is there any thing wrong?” said May startled. “Did any one ever tell you about—about our Geordie and Elsie Calderwood, May? Auntie Jean has been speaking about them to me lately.”
It was not a very good beginning, but she did not know what better to say. May raised herself up, and looked eagerly in her sister’s face.
“I have heard something. Do you mean that you only heard it the other day?”
“Tell me all you know,” said Jean, leaning down on the bed beside her. “And why did you not tell me before?”
“I did not like—and I thought you must ken about it.”
“Ah! yes. It is sad enough. No wonder you didna like to speak about it. But tell me now all you know.”
And May did so, and it was very nearly all there was to tell. She had heard the story, not straight through from beginning to end, as Jean had heard it from her aunt, but from words dropped now and then by one and another of their friends. And Jean could not but wonder that, May having heard so much, she herself should have heard so little. But May knew little of the part her father had taken in the separation of the lovers, how angry he had been, and how determined to put an end to what he called the folly of his son. It was just this that May ought to know, and Jean told it in as few words as possible. She wondered a little at the way in which her sister seemed to take it all.
“Poor Elsie! But she might have died even if she had not been sent to the school. How little folk ken! They say in Portie that her mother sent her away that she might learn things that would fit her to be the wife of young Mr Dawson, and by and by the lady of Saughleas—and that her pride got a fall. It is a sorrowful story, Jean.”
“And the saddest part of it to us is, that poor Geordie is lost and gone from us. And even if he were to come home, it might be little better.”
“Is my father angry yet, Jean? Or is he sorry? Would he do the same if it were all to do over again?”
“Who can say! He has many thoughts about it, doubtless, and some of them cannot but be bitter enough. But as to his doing differently—” Jean shook her head.
“But, Jean, I canna blame my father altogether. His heart was set on his only son, and George was but a boy.”
“Yes, and Aunt Jean says if he had but waited with patience my father might have yielded at last.”
“Or George might have changed. He had seen no one else, and though Elsie was good, and bonny too, there was a great difference between her and—and some that we have seen,—ladies educated and accomplished as well as beautiful. And, Jean, I canna but be sorry for my father.”
“Sorry! That says little. My heart is like to break for him whiles—and it might have been so different!” said Jean sadly.
“If he were living, we should have heard from him before this time.”
“Who can say? Oh! he is living! I canna think he is dead. Poor papa, he must have a sore heart often.”
“Jean,” said her sister after a long silence, “do you think he would do it all over again? I mean—do you think he would be as hard on—you or me?”
“Do you mean—Willie?” asked Jean at last. “Well—Willie or another. It is not easy for my father to change.”
“No, it is not. But, May, have patience. Things often come round in strange ways when we least expect it. If George would only come again! How long is it since the ‘John Seaton’ sailed?”
“A good while since.”
Jean could have told her sister the days and even the hours that had passed since then, but she did not. When she asked the question, it was her brother she was thinking of; but May, who could not know that, believed that she was thinking of Willie Calderwood.
“He may be captain next voyage,” said May. “But I wish he could leave the sea altogether. My father could open the way for that, if he chose.”
“Leave the sea? Is it Willie you are speaking about? He would never do it. May, you must not ask it of him. It would be putting him in a false position altogether. He is a true sailor.”
“Oh! I shall not ask him. It would do little good. But I wonder at you all the same. You have no ambition. He can never be more than just a sea captain—and always away.”
“A sea captain!” repeated Jean. “A sailor!—And what would you have? Would you put him behind the counter in a shop? or set him to casting up figures or counting money in a bank? Would you even old Mr Petrie or James or any of them with the like of him?”
May laughed. “Oh! well, a sailor let him be. But ye needna flee at me as though I had said something horrible. And we needna vex ourselves. That will do no good.”
“It must be late,” said Jean rising. “She takes it quietly enough, and it is well she does. It would wear her out to be ay thinking and fearing and longing for his coming home, as I long for poor George’s. She is ay light-hearted, dear child. God bless her,” added Jean with a sigh.
The rest of the summer passed quietly away. The little Corbetts went home strong and brown and with a wonderful knowledge of and delight in their father’s mother tongue, rejoicing over the invitation for another visit the next summer, if all should be well.
They were much missed in Saughleas, and so was Miss Jean, who, though she enjoyed a visit to her brother and her nieces now and then, liked best the quiet of her own house, and the silent secret doing of the work which she had chosen among the sinful and suffering poor creatures of which, especially in winter-time, Portie had its share. Her stay at Saughleas had done her good. She left her crutch behind her there, and she was able now to go with her staff in one hand and “help and comfort” in the other, to those who in the back sheets and lanes of the town needed her help most. At Saughleas they missed her greatly, for various reasons, and chiefly for this, that at meal times, and at other times also, Mr Dawson was ready to fall into his old habit of silence and reserve, when left alone with his daughters. This silence was good neither for them nor for himself.
“And I am going to try and have it otherwise,” said Jean to herself, as she sat behind the urn, waiting for his coming the first morning they were alone.
He came in as usual with a bundle of papers in his hand, letters that had been received last night, and that must be answered this morning as soon as he reached the bank, and in the mean time he meant to look them over while he drank his coffee.
“I think,” said his daughter looking straight into his face as he adjusted his spectacles, so that he might not let her remark fall as though it had been made to her sister, “I think Aunt Jean is the woman the most to be envied among all the women I know.”
“Ay! Think ye that? And what new light ha’e ye gotten about her to-day?” said her father, arrested by her look rather than her words.
“No new light. Only I have been thinking about her last night and to-day. She is the best woman I know, and the happiest; and I envy her.”
“Ye have but to follow in her steps, and ye’ll be as good as she is,—in time,” said her father dryly. “As to her happiness—I should say she perhaps makes the most of the means of happiness given to her, but otherwise I see little cause that you have to envy her. She is reasonable, and doesna let her wishes and her fancies get the better of her good sense, and so she is content.”
“And if I were reasonable, would I be content, I wonder? As to being as good—that must come of higher teaching and peculiar discipline, and I doubt I shall never be good in her way.”
“And what for no? Your aunt would be the first to tell you that you can get the higher teaching for the asking. And as for discipline—the chances are ye’ll get your share as well as the rest of us.”
“But not just in the same way. A long, patient, laborious, self-forgetting life hers has been—has it not? She is strong and she has been successful; yet she is not hard. She is good, but she is not down on wrong-doers in the way that some good folk are. If I had my choice, I think I would choose to have just such a life as she has had—if it would make me like her.”
Mr Dawson looked at his daughter in some surprise. Jean was not looking at him, but over his head far away to the sea, bright for the moment, under a gleam of sunshine.
“Would that be your choice? A life of labour, and then the life of a solitary single woman! I think I see you!” said her father with something like indignation in his tones.
May laughed. Jean’s eyes came back from the sea with a vague, wistful look in them that startled her father.
“I think, Jean, ye hardly ken what ye’re speaking about.”
“Yes. About Aunt Jean. ‘A solitary single woman?’ No. Not solitary. That has such a sorrowful sound. Oh! she is not solitary in an unhappy sense; even when she is quite alone in her own house by the sea.”
“What I mean is, that she has neither husband nor child. She is alone in that sense. And if ye think that she hasna whiles felt—weel—as if she had missed something in life—that’s no’ my thought.”
“Yes—and that is part of the discipline, I suppose. Missed something—yes. But then, having had these things she might have missed that which makes her different from, and better than, any one else. I ken no one like my Aunt Jean.”
“Weel—ye’re no’ far wrong there. And if ye had kenned her in her youth, you would have said the same. There were none like her then more than now. But she’s growing unco frail-like now, poor body?” added Mr Dawson with a sigh.
And then there was more said. Mr Dawson went on to tell many stories of his sister’s youth, all going to prove that there were few like her for sense and goodness even then. Most of these his daughters had heard before, but they liked to listen all the same. And Mr Dawson forgot his letters, and Jean forgot that it was only to keep his eyes away from them, that she had begun to speak about her aunt, and she took courage because of her success.