Chapter Eighteen.
Another Proposal.
Captain Harefield was at the wedding an honoured guest, as all could see, and for a very good reason, it was said. Through the Blackford groom, it had come to be known in Portie that a change had fallen on the fortunes of Captain Harefield.
Through the sad and sudden death of a distant cousin, he had become heir to a large estate in one of the southern English counties, and though he might have a while to wait for the full enjoyment of his inheritance, and for the tide that was to come with it, there was in the mean time a happy change in his circumstances as far as money was concerned. He had not come to Blackford House this time, to escape duns. And his sister had not come to take care of him.
The chances were that he had an object in view in coming, and on the wedding day more than one of those who saw the looks he cast at the bride and her maidens, had felt satisfied as to what that object might be. Mr Dawson was one of these.
There were several guests still in the house, when a week had passed. Mr Dawson and his sister were sitting one afternoon on the terrace, when Captain Harefield rode up, and in a little he had joined Miss Dawson in the garden. The father watched them as they came and went among the trees.
“Jean has the ba’ at her foot this time, I’m thinking,” said he. “Weel, weel! It it pleases her, it will please me.”
“She’ll never please ye in that way. Dinna think it.”
“I’m no’ so sure that it would please me—no’ so sure as I was this time last year. But I think she might be satisfied.”
“She’ll need a stronger hand to guide her.”
“She has strength and sense to guide him, and that might do as well.”
“It wouldna be for her happiness were she to be persuaded to such a marriage,” said Miss Jean gravely.
“Persuaded! No, that is not likely. But, Jean, I like the lad, though he is no’ a Solomon, I confess, and he has a high place in the world—or he will ha’e ane—and Jean would do him credit.”
“High place or no’, he is no’ her equal in any important sense. If she cared for him, she might guide him and put up with him, as many another woman has to do. As to persuading her—no one could do that; but if she thought your heart was set on it, she might persuade herself to her ain unhappiness.”
“I’se never persuade her. And I would ha’e ill sparin’ her. But it would be a fine position, and she would keep it we’ll.”
“Ay, if she could take it with a good conscience. But that she canna do,” said Miss Jean.
When the bustle attending the wedding was over and all the guests were gone, a new life began at Saughleas. As far as George was concerned, it was not just the life his father would have chosen for him. But George was a man now, and every day that passed proved to his father that he was a man that might safely be trusted to guide himself. It would have pleased his father that he should at once have taken his place as the young laird of Saughleas. There were many signs among the other proprietors of the neighbourhood, that he would have been welcomed to the houses of people who had held hitherto only business intercourse with his father.
There was no need for George to return to the counting-house again. Mr Dawson acknowledged himself to be a richer man than was generally supposed, and George, as the heir of Saughleas, might “take a long tether,” as far as the spending of money was concerned.
And he need not lead an idle life. All the congenial occupations of a country gentleman were open to him, to say nothing of the amusements which only men of comparative leisure could enjoy. Or he might farm his own land. Whether he could make such farming profitable to himself might be doubtful, but he might do good in the countryside, and he would thus have an opportunity of bringing himself into contact with people whose acquaintance was to be desired,—the lairds and gentlemen farmers of the north.
It was to his sister oftener than to his son that all this was said; and listening to him, Miss Jean could not but wonder what had become of the sense and judgment that had guided him through all his life till now.
“When you are dead and gone, and George has a son of his ain, he’ll get willingly in the countryside what you are so anxious for him to take now. It would bring neither the honour nor the pleasure that you are dreaming about for him, if he were to turn his back upon—the shop—for that was the foundation o’ your fortune, though you are a banker and a ship-owner now. Let George win his ain way, as his father did before him; it will be mair to his credit, and mair to his happiness, than any such change as ye would fain see in his way of life. And he’ll be far safer.”
“A body would think to hear ye, Jean, that I was like to be ashamed o’ the shop, and the makin’ o’ my ain way in the world; I’m so far from that, that I seek no other credit or honour in the countryside than what I have won as a man of business. But it might be different with my son.”
“Weel, honour and consideration seldom come the sooner for the seeking. They’ll come to George in good time, if he shall deserve them. It’s little honour he would be like to get from men o’ sense if he were content to sit down with what you ha’e won for him, putting himself in the place that ye ha’e honestly and honourably won for yourself. That would be for the honour o’ neither you nor him, though ye may think it.”
“It was for him I won it. There would be neither pleasure nor profit for me, at my time o’ life, in seekin’ any change. But I acknowledge it would be a pleasure to me to see my son taking his right place in the countryside. It is no’ as if he werena fit for it. Just look at him! Who is there to compare with him? And he has as good blood in his veins as the most o’ them, when a’ is said.”
“He’ll get his right place in time, never fear. And he’ll get it all the readier that he’s no’ in haste about it.”
In the mean time George was in his father’s office, setting himself to the mastering of all details and succeeding therein, in a way that astonished his father. It was that part of the business that had to do with shipping interests which he liked best, and which chiefly claimed his attention at this time. His father acknowledged that he had a clear head, and a power of application that would stand him in stead either as merchant or landed proprietor. And the pleasure he had in his son’s companionship, and in his sympathy with his work, went far to keep him silent as to any change in his present course.
As for George, he was for the most part silent also, because he was unwilling by opposition to his father’s wishes to put in jeopardy the new and pleasant relations existing between them. But to his sister and his aunt he spoke plainly enough.
If any of them were to have special consideration from their neighbours, it must be because of his father’s life, and what he had accomplished in it. As for his assuming the position of the young laird of Saughleas while his father continued the laborious life of a man of business, that would be only contemptible. If he were to take his own way in life, he must win the right to do so, and he made no secret of the possibility that, as the years went on, his way of life might in some respects be different from his father’s.
He pleased his father in one way. He took great interest in all that concerned the management of the estate. He was fond of the place as his home. They agreed in most things which concerned its prosperity and prospects, and if George was less eager than his father in his desire to add to its extent, he did not vex him by showing this too plainly. They differed in opinion about this, and about other things often. But Mr Dawson put great restraint upon himself at such times, striving to remember that George had a right as a man to hold his own opinions and to act upon them though they differed from his. George, on his part, felt no temptation to fail in the perfect respect he owed to his father, in his words and in his ways. And so, in course of time, things bade fair to adjust themselves to the satisfaction of both.
As was to be supposed, Jean and her aunt looked on with deep interest, while the father and son were thus happily though warily renewing their acquaintance, but they said little about it, even to each other. During the first month after May went away there was much going on at Saughleas. Emily Corbett, who had come for the wedding, stayed a while, and Hugh stayed also, though he was strong and well and able for any thing now. There were young people coming to the house for their sakes,—Marion Calderwood, who was Emily’s chief friend, and the young Petries, and others; and there were expeditions here and there, and garden parties at various houses; and Jean’s time and thoughts were much occupied.
Captain Harefield made one of such parties now and then, but not so frequently as had been the case last summer. He was a person of more importance at Blackford House now than he had been then, and though his sister was not there to take care of him, there were others there ready and willing to do the work in which it must be confessed she had failed. He was so good-natured, and so unaccustomed to exert his own will against any one who assumed the right to guide him, that he was easily taken possession of. It was agreeable also to be made much of, to be consulted and included in all arrangements for business or pleasure, so that he did not find his stay at Blackford House “a bore,” as he had done last summer, and he was less inclined to stray away into other parts to look for pleasure.
The less frequently that he came to Saughleas, the more kindly and frankly he was received by Jean, who liked him very well since he seemed to have put foolish thoughts out of his head. But he came often enough to put foolish thoughts into the heads of other people. The young people who came to the house, watched with interest the Captain’s shy devotion, and Jean’s friendly indifference, not quite sure the last was altogether real. Mrs Seldon, during the weeks of her stay, never doubted as to his object in coming, and sensible of the importance attached to having a place in county society and a title in prospect, she doubted as little as to the result of his devotion, and Mr Dawson, with a mingling of feelings which he could not easily have analysed, repeated to himself that “Jean had the ball at her foot, whatever way it might end.” But Miss Jean held fast to her first opinion, that Jean was safe from any temptation to yield to him, and so was another who had not had Miss Jean’s experience.
“Oh! Miss Jean, I am the most unfortunate little creature in all Portie, I think. I’m ay doing or saying something that I shouldna.”
“My dear, ye are worse than unfortunate if that be true. What have ye been at now?”
“It was quite true, what I said, only I wish Mr Dawson hadna heard us. We were speaking about—about Miss Dawson—”
Marion hesitated. She was not quite sure how Miss Jean herself would like to hear that the young folk had been discussing her niece and her affairs so freely.
“It was only that he heard us. I’m ay vexing Mr Dawson, I think.”
“Are you?” said Miss Jean, smiling.
“Ay, am I. Don’t you mind the apple-tree that was broken, and don’t you mind?” several other circumstances that it vexed the girl to remember. But Jean herself coming in, the vexation of the moment could not be discussed and Marion was not sorry.
It had happened thus. She had come early to Saughleas with the young Petries intending to set out at once on an expedition that had been planned to the Castle, but something had delayed several of their party, and the younger folk were whiling away the time of waiting, chatting and laughing as they sat on the grass. By and by the well-known dog-cart passed.
“Haloo! There is your Englishman, Marion,” said Hugh Corbett. “I wonder he didn’t come in. He’ll be back again to go with us, unless we make haste to get away.”
“Well, and why should not he come with us? The more the merrier,” said his sister.
“And he’s no’ my Englishman,” said Marion with dignity; “and for that matter ye are only an Englishman yoursel’.”
“Only an Englishman! Just hear her!” said Hugh.
“And ye’re not even an Englishman. You are neither one thing nor the other,” said Grace Petrie laughing. “If ye were to bide a while in Portie, ye might maybe pass for a Scotchman, however.”
“Oh, indeed! Might I? That’s encouraging.”
This was a favourite subject of discussion between these young people, and much banter passed with regard to the nationality of the Corbetts.
“But he is no’ Marion’s Englishman anyway,” said Jack Petrie in a little. “He only falls back on Marion when Miss Dawson’s company is no’ to be had.”
“And it’s only because Marion saves him the trouble of saying a word. She is such a chatterbox,” said Hugh. “And he’ll have to fall back on her altogether soon, I’m thinking.”
“I’m sure that’s no’ what our Milly thinks,” said Jack. “She says that Miss Dawson—”
“Your Milly! She judges other folk by hersel’! Miss Dawson wouldna look at him,” said Marion Calderwood.
“But she does look at him, whiles,” said Grace.
“But that’s because she’s no’ ay thinkin’ about—about the like o’ that Him indeed! He might as well go and ask for one of the young princesses at once.”
They all laughed and exclaimed.
“Well, she would be no more above him in one way than Miss Dawson is in another. A baronet? What o’ that? Any body might be a baronet, I suppose,” said Marion.
“But nothing short of a lord will do for Jean Dawson, ye think. I doubt she’ll bide a whilie,” said Jack scornfully.
“And she can afford to bide a whilie. Miss Dawson is sufficient for herself,” said Marion loftily. “But I don’t expect you to understand me, Jack; and I don’t think it is nice for us to be speaking that way about Miss Dawson.”
“I agree with you,” said Emily.
“So do I,” said Hugh. “But I have one question to ask, and only one. Who of all the gentlemen you have ever seen would you think good enough or great enough for Miss Dawson.”
“Oh! as to good enough, that is not what Marion means,” said Grace.
“No. Nor great enough,” said Emily. “Well—just suitable—worthy of her, in every way? In mind, body, and estate. Come, let us hear.”
“Yes, come, let us hear.”
“In mind, body, and estate,” repeated Emily laughing. “I think enough has been said already,” and Marion rose to go away. “But if ye will have it—I never saw any body in every respect worthy of Miss Dawson—except, perhaps—But yet—” Marion hesitated, and then added,—
“I dinna believe there is another in all Scotland like Miss Dawson.”
“I agree—nor in England either,” said Hugh. “But I rise to ask a question—”
He had risen, but it was evidently with the design of intercepting Marion, who was moving over the grass intent on getting away.
“I leave it to the company if we have not a right to hear what is to be said; and, what is more, you are not going away till you tell us.”
He did not touch her, but he looked quite ready to do it.
“Nonsense, Hugh! You are not to vex Marion,” said his sister; but she drew near with the rest to listen.
“‘Not one in all Scotland,’ she said,” repeated Grace laughing.
“Let us stick to the point,” said Hugh.
Marion reddened and fidgeted, and measured the distance with her eye with the evident intention of running away, and all this Hugh noted—nodding and smiling.
“Ye canna gar Marion speak, if she’s no willin’. I’ve seen her tried,” said another Petrie.
“Why shouldna I speak?” said Marion, realising the impossibility of getting away. “Except that—it’s no’ a thing to speak about—here. What I mean is this. But yet if she were to give her whole heart to any one—he would be the right one—even if—but she would never care for one who was not worthy. Now let me go.”
“Yes—certainly. Well?”
Marion had made up her mind to say no more. But when Grace Petrie, tossing her head and laughing, said that she could guess who the exception might be, she changed her mind again.
“Well!” said Hugh, drawing still near as she receded. “‘Except, perhaps,’ whom?”
“I except no one that ever I saw, for there is no one that ever I saw who, in all things—in mind, body, and estate, as you say—I would think fit for Miss Dawson. But what I was going to say was—except, perhaps—George—only he is her brother, ye ken.”
“George!” echoed, many voices.
“And what’s George more than another?” asked Jack scornfully. “She’ll be saying next, that there’s naebody like him in all Scotland.”
And then Marion, glancing up at the window beneath which they had been sitting, met the wondering look of Mr Dawson.
“He must have heard every word,” said Grace in a whisper.
Marion turned and fled to seek comfort with Miss Jean.
They went away to the Castle, and Miss Dawson went with them; Captain Harefield came to the house soon after they set out, but he did not follow them, though Mr Dawson suggested that he might easily overtake them before they reached the place. It was Mr Dawson himself he had come to see; and when they all came back, and the young folk had had their tea and were gone home together in the moonlight, her father had something to say to Jean.
“It’s a comfort that you can just leave it to Jean herself,” said his sister, when he told his news to her. Of what her own opinion might be she said nothing, nor was she curious to hear what Mr Dawson might think now about the chance that his daughter had of becoming the wife of Captain Harefield. “It is a thing that she must decide for herself; and indeed she will let no one else decide it.”
There was a measure of comfort in that view of the matter. For though Mr Dawson was ambitious for his daughter, Captain Harefield as a man with expectations was by no means so interesting to him personally as he had been last year when he had none. He knew by Jean’s face at the first word spoken, that her aunt was right.
“I gave him his answer last year,” said she.
“But it’s no’ an unheard of thing that a woman should change her mind,” said her father dryly.
“I have had no reason to change my mind, but many reasons against it. Fancy my leaving you and George and the happy life we are just beginning, to go away with a stranger to folk that would look down on me, and think he had thrown himself away?”
“I could make it worth their while to think otherwise.” But Jean shook her head. “Last year you might, when he had nothing.”
“As for his friends—ye need ha’e little to do with them. I dare say none o’ them can ha’e a higher sense o’ their ain importance than his sister, Mrs Eastwood, and I think ye could hold your own with her.”
“If it were worth my while. But, papa—he is nothing in the world to me.”
“He is not a clever man, I ken that. But I like him. He is sweet tempered, and he is a gentleman, and he cares for you. And I think, with you to stand by him, he might be a good man and a useful.”
“But, papa—the weariness of it, even if I cared for him.”
“But that might come in time.”
“No, papa. I am not—going with him. He will find some one who will care for him, and who will fill the high position that he can give her better than I could do.”
In his heart the father did not believe that, but he only said,—
“Very likely. You must please yourself I only wish you to ken your ain mind, and understand what you are refusing. He will be Sir Percy Harefield, and there may come a time when you will regret your refusal.”
“I don’t think it, papa.”
“As for not wishing to leave your brother and me—George will marry sometime, and then you will be but second with him, though he may be first with you.”
“Of course he will marry, papa. And I will be ‘Auntie Jean’ to his bairns. And I’ll ay have you, papa.”
“But, Jean, I want you to understand. When George marries it is my intention to give up Saughleas to him. His wife will be mistress here then.”
He watched her face as he said this. She was not looking at him, but out at the window, standing in the full light. She turned to him with a smile like sunshine on her face.
“Then I could live with Auntie Jean when you didna need me any more. ‘The twa Miss Jean Dawsons!’ Wouldna ye like that, Auntie Jean? But, papa,” she added gravely, “it wouldna please George to hear you speak of giving up Saughleas to him.”
“He need not hear it till the right time comes. There need be no haste. His choice will be the wiser the longer he waits, let us hope.”
“And you are not vexed with me, papa?”
“So that you are sure o’ yourself. That is the main thing. You might take longer time to think about it.”
“No, no. A longer time would make no difference. It would not be fair to Captain Harefield—and I am quite sure of myself.”
Miss Jean, as her manner was, had kept silence during the whole interview.
“Her time will come, I dare say, but she is fancy-free at present,” said her father as Jean left the room.
“She has done wisely this time,” said her aunt. “And it is well that she should wait till her time come.”
“That is well over,” said Jean to herself. “And I can wait—yes, though it be all my life—if so it must be.”
For Jean had found herself out long before this time—before the “John Seaton” had come home even. She knew that she “cared for” Willie Calderwood as she could care for no other man. And since that night when they had clasped hands and looked into each other’s eyes she had not been ashamed of her love. For there had been more than the gladness of home coming in Willie’s eyes, his hand-clasp had told of more than friendship.
True he had guarded eyes and hands and voice since then, and he might keep silence still for years—there was cause enough, Jean acknowledged, remembering “bonny Elsie.” But he “cared for her,” and she could wait. “Patiently? Yes, hopefully, joyfully,” she had told herself often, and now she said it again as she sang softly to herself as she went about the house.
But that night her brother came home with a sadder face than usual, for he had heard sad news, he said. Willie Calderwood had declined the command of the “John Seaton.” He was about to sail as second officer in one of the great ocean steamships. Indeed he had already sailed, for his note to George was written at the last moment, he said; and he must cross the wide Atlantic twice before she should see him again.
“It is not so bad as a year’s voyage to the north,” she told herself. “Portie is his home while his mother is here and Marion.”
But he had spoken no word to her before he went, as he might have done, if he had been going away to the dangers of the Arctic seas. That was the pain to her. But she comforted herself. Though she knew his pride was strong, she thought that his love would prove stronger still, and he would speak when the right time came.
But when Willie had crossed the sea twice, and twice again, still he did not come to Portie. He went instead to London, and there he fell in with an aunt of his father’s who, in years long past, had been the wife of a London merchant, but who was a childless widow now. She had been left with a large house and a small income more than thirty years ago, when she was young and courageous, and she had put aside all the traditions of the class into which marriage had brought her, and had fallen back on the belief in which she had been brought up in her home in the north, that honest work honourably followed was a blessing to be thankful for, rather than a burden to be borne.
So her head and her hands and her house were all put to use, and she had lived a busy and a happy life since then. But she was growing old now, and her heart longed for her own land and kindred, so when she saw Willie, and heard of his mother who was a widow, and his young sister Marion, she begged them to come to her for a while.
It is doubtful whether Mrs Calderwood would have had the courage to accept the invitation, if the thought of leaving Portie had not been already familiar to her; and it is equally doubtful whether she would have had the courage to go away, if this invitation had not come. It was for a visit that they were going, she said, but her house was given up, the few things which she valued and could not take with her, were safely put away in an empty room in Miss Jean’s house. And no one knew when she might be expected in Portie again.
Jean had not often seen Mrs Calderwood since the day she had gone to ask Marion to visit her at the time her sister May was in London, but she saw her now in her aunt’s house, where the last few days of the mother and daughter were passed, and though they both strove against it, there was a shadow of embarrassment between them.
“We’ll maybe see May in London, and we’ll be sure to see you when you come to visit her there,” Marion said, including both George and Jean in her words.
“London is a large place, and Mrs Manners has her own friends,” said Mrs Calderwood.
“We shall find you out, never fear, and we winna forget you even if you should live in London all your life.”
Marion laughed and then looked grave.
“But that can never happen,” said she.
If Jean was grave and silent for a while at this time, no one noticed it but her aunt, and she did not remark upon it. Indeed she was grave and a little sad herself for she greatly missed both mother and daughter, who had been her dear friends and daily visitors for many a year, and she confessed to a strange feeling of loneliness in her house by the sea.
Jean came often to see her and so did George, but she seldom spoke about the Calderwoods to either of them. Now and then a letter came from Marion to Jean or to her aunt, but after the very first these letters said nothing about coming home to Portie again.
And Jean waited. Not unhappily. Far from that, for her life was a busy one. She had much to do and much to enjoy in her father’s house and beyond it. She strove to forget herself, and to remember others, and made no one anxious or curious because of her grave looks and her sadness.
She just waited, telling herself that if so it must be, she would do as her aunt had done, and wait on till the end.