Chapter Fifteen.
Mr Dawson’s Will.
It would doubtless have been agreeable to Mr Dawson had Mr Manners been a richer man than he seemed to be, but he did not allow even to Miss Jean, that this want of money was a serious drawback to the satisfaction he felt in consenting to his daughter’s marriage.
“He is a man whom I like much, and money is a secondary consideration,” said he.
“That’s true,” said Miss Jean.
“Not that he is without means, and he has a good professional income. They will do very well. It is true I havena kenned him long, as ye say; and I dare say ye think I have been in haste with my consent. But just wait a wee. He’ll ha’e your good word. For ye ken a man when ye see him.”
“If they truly love one another—that is the chief thing.”
Mr Dawson laughed.
“They do that.”
“And what does Jean say?”
“She’ll tell you herself. There has been little time to say any thing. He is to be brought over to see you to-day. I wished to send for you, but Jean said it was more becoming that he should come to you. Jean has her ain notions about most things.”
“Ay, she has that.”
“And ye’ll come hame with them to Saughleas? There are two or three things that I would like to have a word with you about. And ye’ll be sure to come.”
But Miss Jean did not promise. She liked best to be at Saughleas when there were no strangers there, she said. Mr Dawson was ready to resent her calling Mr Manners a stranger, so she said nothing. The matter could be decided afterwards.
Probably Jean was only thinking of what was due to her aunt, when she insisted on taking their new friend to make her acquaintance in her own house. But it was a wise thing to do for other reasons than Miss Jean’s “dignity,” which her niece might very well have left to take care of itself.
The house was like herself,—quiet, simple, unpretending, but with a marked character of its own; and no one could fail to be impressed with his first glimpse of Miss Jean, sitting in her quaint parlour, with its shelves of brown old books, its great work-basket, and its window looking to the sea. She was an old woman now, and not very strong; but the inward calm which earthly trouble had no power to disturb, had kept disfiguring wrinkles from her face, and the soft wavy hair that showed under her full-bordered cap was still more brown than grey.
Some who had known Miss Jean all her life declared that she was far more beautiful at sixty than she had ever been in her youth. And naturally enough. For a life of glad service to a loving Master, a helpful, hopeful, self-forgetful doing of good as opportunity is given, for His sake, tell on the countenance as on the character; and the grave cheerfulness, the trustful peace that rested on the old woman’s face were beautiful to those who had eyes to see.
It was not May, but Miss Dawson, who came with the visitor that morning.
“Auntie Jean, I have brought Mr Manners to see you,” said she coming in unannounced.
Miss Jean received them kindly, but with a certain gravity.
“Yes, your father has been here. He told me who was coming,” said she, and her eyes sought Jean’s gravely and earnestly. Jean nodded and smiled, carrying her aunt’s look to the face of Mr Manners.
“Yes, auntie, that is the way of it.” Then Miss Jean gave him her hand again. “The Lord keep and guide you both. And the Lord deal with you as ye shall deal with the bairn that is willing to leave her father’s house to go with you.”
“Amen!” said Mr Manners, and he stooped and touched with his lips the soft wrinkled hand that had been offered him.
They had not very much to say to one another for a while. It was Jean who kept up the talk for a little, remarking upon the “bonny day,” and the flowers that were coming out earlier than usual, and on the sea, which was seen at its best to-day, she said, a sparkling blue that faded to pale green and grey in the distance.
“You have a wide view of it here,” said Mr Manners who was leaning against the ledge looking out.
There was nothing to be seen from Miss Jean’s usual seat, but the sea and one rocky cape in the northern distance. “It is company to me,” said she. “It is ay changing.”
“But it is dreary whiles, aunt, very dreary, when the wind blows loud, and the winter is here.” Miss Jean smiled.
“I think winter makes less difference to my outlook than it does to yours, Jean, my dear. It’s ay the sea, and ay the same, yet ay changing ilka day o’ the year, be it summer or winter. It is like a friend’s face to me now after all that’s come and gone.”
It was not easy getting below the surface of things, because their thoughts were of the kind not easily spoken. Miss Jean said least, but she looked and listened and was moved by the soft flowing English speech of their new friend, in a way that filled her with amazement, “after all these years,” she said to herself.
By and by May came in, leaving Hugh Corbett in the pony carriage at the door. She hesitated a moment, shy, but smiling, on the threshold, and then Mr Manners led her forward to be kissed and congratulated and made much of by her aunt.
“Ye’ll try and be a good wife—as your mother was,” said Miss Jean softly, and she gave a tearful, appealing glance toward him who had won the child’s heart.
“I love her dearly,” said he gently. “And I will care for her first always.”
“I believe ye,” said Miss Jean.
What with his good, true face, his kindly ways and winning-speech, he had won her good word, as easily as he had won Jean’s “who liked him at the first glance,” as she had told her father.
Mr Manners’ visit was necessarily brief, but when he went away, he carried with him the good-will, and more than the good-will, of them all. Even young Corbett, who had at first resented the break made in the pleasant life they had been living of late by his monopolising Miss May’s time and attention, agreed with the rest at last. They became mutually interested over shells and seaweeds, beetles and birds’ nests, and they were very friendly before Mr Manners went away.
Before his departure Mr Manners put Jean’s friendship to the test.
“If you are on my side, I shall be able to bring about that on which I have set my heart, and I must remind you of your promise.”
Jean laughed.
“It seems that you are like to get that on which you have set your heart without the help of any one.”
“Ah! but how would it have been if you had set yourself against me? Or if you were to do so even now?”
“It is too late for that now, and I don’t think you are much afraid.”
“Jean,” said he gravely, “I want my May for my very own on the first day of August.” Jean was not so startled as she might have been. “I did not think you would be willing to wait very long. But the first of August! That is not much more than three months. It will look like haste.”
There were, it seemed, many good reasons for that which looked like haste. The chief one was this: Mr Manners looked forward to two full months of leisure after that time, which could not happen again for another year. He had set his heart on carrying his bonny May to Switzerland for the whole two months.
“Think what that would be in comparison to a winter marriage, and then straight to a dull house in a London street!”
“Will she find it dull, do you think?” asked Jean smiling. “Ah! that may be very possible, even though I know she will go willingly. Miss Dawson, I feel as if I were guilty of wrong-doing in thinking to take my darling from a home like this, to such a one as I can give her, even though I believe she loves me.”
But Jean smiled still. “You need not fear.”
“Thanks. I will not. But in those two months, think how we should learn to know each other, as we could not in my busy days in London! And she would learn to trust me. And it might be if you were to be on my side. As to preparations—dresses and things—”
“It is not that. All that is quite secondary. I mean I could see to all that after,” said Jean to his surprise. “It is something quite different that I was thinking about.”
It was the return of the “John Seaton” with her brother George on board of which she was thinking, and she was wondering whether it would be right to let her sister go, if he should not be home before that time. But she could not speak to Mr Manners of this. Indeed she could speak of nothing for the moment. For May came into the room, and her lover intimated triumphantly that her sister agreed with him as to the important matter of the time.
“And you know you were to leave the decision to her.”
“I agree with you that preparations need not stand in the way. As to other things, I cannot decide. It was something quite different that I was thinking of.”
But she did not say what it was, even to her sister, and from that time it was understood that the marriage was to take place on the first of August, and that, if possible, Mr Manners was to pay one more visit before that time.
In the quiet that followed his departure, the anxiety which in her interest in her sister’s happiness she had for the time put aside, came back again to Jean. She strove to hide it from her father, and devoted herself to May and her preparations, with an earnestness which left her little time for painful thought. There was less to do in the way of actual preparation than might have been supposed—at least less than could be done by their own hands. The “white seam” that had employed Jean’s fingers through so many summer afternoons and winter evenings, came into use now.
“I meant them for you, quite as much as for myself, and I shall have plenty of time to make a new supply before I need them,” said she when May hesitated to appropriate so much of her exquisite work.
There was plenty to do, and Jean left herself no time for brooding over her fears. She kept away from the shore and the old sailors now, and from the garrulous fishwives of the town. She would not listen even to the eager reasoning of the hopeful folk who strove to prove that as yet there was no cause to fear for the ship; and she did keep all tokens of anxiety out of her face as far as her father saw; which perhaps was because he was occupied more than usual at this time with anxieties of his own. But when Mr Manners had been gone a month and more, and they were beginning to look for his return, something happened which would have made it impossible for her to hide her trouble much longer.
Mr Dawson had never yet taken any important step in business matters, or in any matter, without first talking it over with his sister. He did not always take her advice, and she never urged her advice upon him beyond a certain point; but whether her advice was accepted or rejected, there was no difference in their relations to each other because of that. He claimed her sympathy when the next call for it came, none the less readily because he had refused to be guided by her judgment, nor was she the less ready to hear and sympathise.
“The breaks,
Which humour interposed, too often makes,”
never came between these two, and her judgment guided him, and her conscience restrained him, oftener than either of them knew.
Long ago he had spoken to her about some change that he wished to make in his will, and some words of hers spoken at the time, hindered him from obeying his own impulse in the matter. He knew that it was not wise to delay the right settlement of his affairs, and now the arrangements necessary in regard to his daughter’s marriage portion brought the matter up again, and made some decision inevitable.
That his son was dead, or worse than dead, he could not but believe, now that another year had gone bringing no word from him. In his silent broodings, he had in a sense got accustomed to the misery of the thought. He was dead, or, if he lived, he was lost to him forever. Even if he were living, his long silence proved to his father that he never meant to come home while his father lived.
He might come afterwards; and then his coming might bring trouble upon his sisters, unless all things were settled beyond the power of change. And so it must be settled. But, oh! the misery of it!
To think that his only son might come when he was dead, and stand where they had stood together at his mother’s grave, and have only hard thoughts of his father! How could it ever have come to such a pass between them! The memory of those first days of their estrangement, seemed to him now like a strange and terrible dream. Had he been hard on his son? He was but a lad,—he repeated many a time,—he was but a lad, and he had loved him so dearly.
Nothing could be changed now. In the silence of the night, often amid the business of the day, his heart grew soft towards his son, and he repented of his anger and his hardness toward him. But nothing could be changed now, and the future of his daughters must be made safe against possible trouble when he should be no more.
He had nothing that was new to say to his sister, except that the year that had gone by bringing no word of him, made it less likely that they would ever hear from him again; and she could only listen sadly and acknowledge that it was even so.
But though there was not much that was new to be said, they were rarely left alone together that their talk did not turn on this matter. Mr Dawson’s mind was so full of all that must be gone into and arranged in view of what he had to do, that he was sure to speak of it, and to dwell upon it, more sometimes than was wise. And so it happened that Jean, coming in from a solitary walk in the gloaming to the parlour, where there was no light, was startled by hearing her father say,—
“I think that will be a just division. I will make it up to her aster, but it is Jean who must have the land. I will not divide, and I will not burden the land.”
Jean heard the words without fully taking in their meaning, till her aunt said in her grave, firm voice,—
“And if he ever should come home, you may trust to my Jean to deal kindly and justly with her brother.”
“Papa,” said Jean coming forward, “I heard what you were saying.”
Mr Dawson did not answer for a moment, then he said, “It might have been as well if ye hadna heard. But a while sooner or later can make less difference than it would if ye werna a woman o’ sense.”
“Papa! Have you forgotten—Geordie?” Her father answered nothing. Her aunt put out her hand and touched hers, and Jean knew that the touch meant that silence was best. But she could not keep silence.
“Papa, you think that he is dead, but he is not. He will come home again. And how could we look him in the face if we were to wrong him when he is away! As for me, I will never take what is his by right—never. You must give the land to whom you will, but not to me.” Still her father did not utter a word. “Whisht, lassie,” said her aunt; “ye dinna ken what ye are saying. Dinna grieve your father, Jean.”
But Jean was “beside herself,” her aunt thought.
“Papa, was it not for George that you bought the land? Have you had much pleasure in it since he went away? But, papa, he will come again. He is sure to come home—soon.”
Jean’s voice faltered a little. That night her father had come home anxious and burdened with fears for the safety of the “John Seaton.” There had been some of the sailors’ wives inquiring for news, and there was no news to give them though it was more than time; and though Mr Dawson had spoken cheerfully to the women, the few words he spoke, and the grave face he wore at his own tea-table, had made it plain to Jean that his fears were stronger than his hopes.
He looked up at Jean when she said so eagerly that her brother was sure to come home, as though he expected her to say more. But how could Jean say more, knowing what she knew? It was too late now to tell that her brother had sailed in the “John Seaton.” She could only look at him with pitiful, wet eyes, and repeat over and over again,—
“Papa, he will come home. He is sure to come. We must always hope. And when he comes, he must not know that you ever thought of putting—another in his place. It must not be me. Even if I could give it all back to him, it would not be the same. He could never believe you had forgiven him if you were to do as you said. And, oh! Auntie Jean, he is sure to come home. We can only wait and hope?”
“Only wait and hope and pray. He will come if it is God’s will. And if he shouldna, God’s will is best.”
There was nothing more to be said. But did the old man sitting there with his face hidden in his hands assent to his sister’s words? Had God’s will been best? If he could have had his will, all should have been very differently ordered, as far as the past of his son was concerned. As for the future—did he wish for his return? Could the misery of their long estrangement ever be forgotten or outlived?
The bright-faced, happy, loving lad never could return—never. What was his son like now? What could he hope from him, or for him, after what he knew of him?
Oh, yes! he loved him, pitied him, longed for him; but if it were God’s will that he should come home again, would God’s will be best? God Himself could not blot out the past, and make them to each other all that they had been before this trouble came between them. He groaned aloud in his misery, and then he remembered that he was not alone. He rose up as if to go, but sat down again, putting great constraint upon himself.
“We’ll say nae mair about it now, lassie,” said he hoarsely.
“No, papa, only this, Wait a little while. George will surely come home—or—we shall hear that he is dead. I think he will come home—soon.”
“Will our Geordie, our frank, true-hearted, noble lad ever come home to us again, think you? Could God Himself give him back to us as he was?”
“Whisht! George, man,” said his sister gravely. “Think what ye’re saying! All things are possible with God.”
“Ay! to him that believes, but that is beyond belief—to me,” said the old man with a sob.
“Papa,” said Jean touching his bowed head with her hand, “He will come home—soon.”
“And whether he come or no’, we have just to live our lives and make the best of them,” said Mr Dawson rising; and he went away with no word of good-night.
Jean lent her young strength to the weakness and weariness of her aunt as they went up the stairs together, but there were no more words spoken between them. They kissed one another in silence, and each knew that the other could not lighten the burden of care and pain that had fallen on both.
Though they had waited so long and so anxiously for the return of the “John Seaton,” it took the Dawsons by surprise at last. But from the moment that the white sails broke the line of the far horizon, the ship was watched by an ever-increasing crowd gathering on the pier, and on the high rocks above the town.
Glasses were passed from hand to hand, while some looked doubtful and grave, and others joyfully declared that it was the long-expected vessel. In an anguish of hope and fear fathers and mothers, wives and sisters, waited. Some wept and prayed, and wandered up and down, others sat in still excitement counting the moments till the suspense should end.
It was Sunday afternoon and so none of the Dawsons were in the town. Even Miss Jean was at Saughleas. In the excitement of the moment none thought of sending word to the owner of the ship. Not one of all the anxious mothers and wives who were waiting but had more at stake than he.
“But when we are sure, and when I’ve seen our Tam, I’ll be off to Saughleas to tell the twa Miss Jeans,” said Robbie Saugster to his sister Maggie, who was waiting and hoping like the rest.
“Ay. They’ll be glad—or sorry,” said Maggie with a sob.
“The twa Miss Jeans, said he!” repeated Mrs Cairnie, who was wandering up and down, anxious and intent as all the rest, though there was no one belonging to her on the ship, or on any ship that sailed. “The twa Miss Jeans! And what is it to them? Ay, I ken fine the auld man is chief owner, and weel he likes his siller. But the twa Miss Jeans! what is it to them? Except that they may ha’e had their ain thochts for a’ the puir bodies that ha’e grown feared this while,” added the old woman relenting.
“They ha’e had many an anxious thought, and many a kind word and deed for them—I ken weel,” said another woman whose eyes were on the ship.
“An’ sae do I,” said another who was sitting on a stone with her baby in her arms, because her trembling limbs would not support her. “What would I ha’e done but for auld Miss Jean since my man sailed.”
“Ay; and they say auld Miss Jean has been through it all.”
“And whether or no’, she kens how to weep wi’ those who weep.”
“But she’ll ‘rejoice with them that do rejoice’ this time, for as sure as I ha’e e’en to see, yon’s the ‘John Seaton’!”
“And I’se awa’ to the pier head,” said Robbie. “Are you coming, Maggie?”
Maggie took two steps after him, then she turned.
“Come, Mrs Barnet. It’ll soon be over now. I’ll carry wee Jamie.” And the crowd moved with them.
It was the “John Seaton.” All saw that by this time. There was but a thin kirk that night, for none could force themselves away from the shore, and some who set out for the kirk, turned aside with the rest to meet and welcome those who were coming home. But the kirk was empty and the crowd increased before the “John Seaton” touched the pier.
The first who reached the deck was Robbie Saugster, and the first man he saw was Willie Calderwood, tall and brown and strong, a hero in the boy’s eyes.
“Our Tam?” said he with a gasp.
“Tam’s a’ richt. Tell your mother I’ll be round to see her.”
There was no time for more. The folk pressed forward, and all noticed that the mate’s face was graver that it ought to have been. There was something wrong.
“Is Mrs Horne here? Or my mother?” asked the mate. “Is that you, Robbie Saugster? Run to my mother’s house and say I bade her go to Mrs Horne’s, and bide till I come there.”
Robbie was off like a shot. “Is it ill news?”
“If it’s ill news, the laddie should speak in and tell auld Miss Jean.”
“Miss Jean is unco frail.”
“Miss Jean is ower at Saughleas.”
“And is it Captain Horne? And when did it happen?”
“Puir woman! Her turn has come at last!” Many voices took up the “ill news,” telling it gravely till it went through the throng. Even those who had got their own safe home again, spoke their welcome gravely, thinking of her who had to hear heavy tidings.