Chapter Fourteen.
Mr Manners.
It would not have been easy for Jean to set about any very elaborate preparations for the reception of the expected guest, without attracting the notice of her sister, who was to know nothing of his coming beforehand. Happily no special preparation was needed in her well-regulated household, for within a shorter time than seemed possible after her father’s letter of invitation had been sent, he made his appearance at Saughleas.
He had reached the town at night, and presented himself at the bank in the morning before Mr Dawson had reached it. They missed each other as he took his way to Saughleas, and Jean was the only one there to receive him. The day was mild and dry, and May and young Corbett had set off immediately after breakfast, on an expedition to the Castle.
Jean was in the garden, intent on hastening the completion of certain changes that had been commenced in the arrangement of flower beds and shrubbery, indeed putting her own hands to the work of clipping and transplanting under proper direction and authority. She saw the stranger the moment he opened the gate, and stood still in her place behind a sheltering fir-tree, regarding him as he came slowly round the drive.
She saw a pleasant face, with something of the pallor of the student upon it—not handsome, but a good, true face, she thought as he came nearer. He was tall, as her father had said, and he stooped a little; but it was not a round-shouldered stoop, rather a slight inclining forward as he walked, such as short-sighted people are apt to fall into unawares. Certainly he was “not to call old.”
A scholar and a gentleman, her father had said. He was all that, or his looks belied him, Jean told herself as he came slowly forward.
He stood for a moment looking up into the sky through the lovely mingling of faint colours made by the swelling buds and opening leaves in the tops of the great beeches, and Jean’s impulse was to come forward at once and give him welcome. But she looked at her gloves, and at her thick shoes soiled with the garden mould, and at her linsey gown too short to hide them, and she thought of her sister, and “these fastidious English folk,” and the “credit of the family,” and so went swiftly round the house, and in at the back door, and up to her own room.
She did not linger over her toilette, however. By the time Phemie came to announce the stranger’s arrival, the stately young mistress of the house was ready in her pretty house dress of some dim purple stuff to go down and receive him. She went with more shyness than stateliness, however, being conscious of the object of his coming, and entered so quietly, that he did not move from the window out of which he was gazing, till she had come near him. He turned quickly at the sound of her voice.
“Is it—Mr Manners?” said she, offering her hand. “You expected me then?”
“Yes. Papa told me you were coming.”
“And you are Jean? And you will be my friend?” Jean’s eyes met his frankly and very gravely for a moment, and then she said softly,—
“Yes. I think I may promise to be your friend.”
If she could put any trust in the face as an index of character, she might surely promise that, she thought. She waited a moment, expecting that he would ask for her sister. He did not, but stood looking at her in a silence that must have become embarrassing if it had continued long. So she offered breakfast, which he declined. Then she expressed her regret that he should have missed her father, but she would send at once to tell him of his arrival.
This was not necessary, however. Mr Dawson having heard of Mr Manners’ arrival at the bank, returned home immediately; but they were already in the dining-room, before May and young Corbett appeared. They went in the back way and passed through Beckie’s kitchen.
“Eh! Miss May! What can ha’e keepit you? Miss Dawson has been muckle putten aboot. Your papa’s come hame and a strange gentleman wi’ him. Na, it’s naebody ye need to heed. Was’t Peters they ca’ed him, Phemie? It’s luncheon and nae dinner—so you can just go ben as ye are. Ye couldna look better or bonnier though ye were to change your gown and tak’ an hour to do it. And Miss Dawson was sair putten aboot.”
So with no warning as to whom she was to see, flushed and laughing, and submitting to be made a crutch by the recovering and adventurous Hugh, May entered the dining-room.
“It was hardly fair upon her,” her father thought, and Jean turned pale with vexation that it so should have happened. But she need not have been afraid. After the first startled glance, and rush of colour, May met her friend with a gentle dignity which left nothing to be desired in her sister’s opinion. Mr Manners was to all appearance less self-possessed than she was, and his greetings were brief and grave.
All were for some time in a state of restrained excitement that made conversation not easy, till Hugh came to the rescue by referring to Mr Dawson the decision of some point which had fallen under discussion during the morning’s ride, on which Miss May and he had disagreed. It had reference to a circle of stones in the neighbourhood, said to be of Druidical origin, and Hugh stated the difference of opinion clearly and fairly enough. Mr Dawson could give no light on the subject, however, and smiled at the idea of attaching any importance to the question.
“And besides,” said May gently, but with an air of wishing to put an end to the matter, “I told you I did not hold any opinion with regard to them.”
But Hugh, in his persistent way, refused to let it so end; and Jean, glad of any thing rather than silence, added her word, hoping that they might some time during the summer go to see the “Stanes.”
“But, Miss May,” continued Hugh, “though you said you did not know yourself, you gave authority for your opinion—at least as far as similar circles elsewhere are concerned. And was it not?—Yes, it was Mr Manners that you said had told you—”
Jean laughed. She could not help it. May grew red as a rose. Then Mr Manners took up the word, and there was no more uncomfortable silence after that; and Hugh heard more concerning this new subject of interest than he would be likely to hear again for many a day.
Before they rose from the table, Mr Dawson was called away by some one who wished to see him on business, and Hugh, with Jean for his crutch this time, betook herself to his room to rest and be out of the way. May went to the parlour with Mr Manners, intending only to show him the way and then go to her own room to change her habit for her house dress; but when Jean came back again, May was in the room still, and the door was shut.
Jean stood looking at it for a moment, with the strangest mingling of emotions—joy for her sister, sorrow for herself—a feeling as if the old familiar life were come to an end, and a new life beginning; nay, as if the very foundations of things were being removed.
“We can never be the same again—never,” she said, with a sharp touch of pain at her heart. “I have lost my bonny May.”
It was foolish to be grieved, it was worse than foolish to be angry, at the thought of change; but she knew that if she were to look closely into her heart, she would find both grief and anger there.
“I canna help it, but I needna yield to it,” she said; and then she turned resolutely toward the kitchen, where Beckie was awaiting necessary directions with regard to dinner.
She lingered over her arrangements, and by and by put her own hands to some of them, for she found it impossible to settle quietly to any thing, though she told herself that her restlessness was foolish and not to be excused. It took her out of the house at last, and down the walk past the well and through the wood, where she had many times gone during the last few months to the most sweet and peaceful spot in all the world, she thought—where her mother and her little brother and sisters lay; and here, after a while, her father found her. He was not free from restlessness either, it seemed. Jean rose as he drew near.
“Where is your sister? Should you have left her?” asked he doubtfully.
Jean shook her head and laughed.
“They shut the door upon me.”
“Ay! He’s in earnest, yon lad. You like him, Jean? Though it’s soon to ask.”
“Not too soon. I liked him the first glance I got of him. He has a good, true face. Yes; I like him.”
“It doesna take you long to make up your mind,” said her father laughing. But he was evidently pleased. “You dinna like his errand? Well that was hardly to be expected. But if it hadna been him, it would have been another, and we should have lost her all the same. And it might have been worse.”
“Yes, it might have been worse.”
Jean was thinking what her father’s feelings would have been had May’s troth been plighted to Willie Calderwood. But her father was thinking that it would have been worse for him to-day had it been for Jean that the stranger had asked.
“It will be your turn next,” said he with a sad attempt at jesting.
But Jean answered gravely,—
“No. I think not I’m content as I am.”
Her father laughed, a short, uncertain laugh.
“Ay! that will do till the right man comes, and then—we’ll see.”
“But he may never come. He never came to Auntie Jean.”
“Did he no’? Weel, it came to that in the end.”
Mr Dawson looked up and met the question in Jean’s eyes, but he did not answer it, and her lips were silent. She did not need an answer. Though she had heard nothing, she seemed to know how it had been with her aunt. Disappointment had come to her in her youth. Whether death had brought it, or change, or misunderstanding, or something harder to bear than these, she knew not; but however it had come, it had doubtless been a part of the discipline that had wrought toward the mingled strength and sweetness of her aunt’s character, so beautiful in Jean’s eyes. She forgot her father in thinking about it.
And for the same reason her father forget her. There were none like his sister in his esteem. None, of all the women he had seen grow old, had lived a life so useful, or were so beloved and respected in their old age as she. Her life—except for a year or two—had never been solitary in a painful sense, he thought. It had been, and was still, full of interest—bound up with the lives and enjoyment of others, as much as the life of any married woman of them all.
“And if she were to die to-night, there are more in Portie that would miss and mourn her than for many mothers of families, and that is not more than all would acknowledge who ken what she is and what she has done in the town.”
But for his daughter? No, it was not a life like her aunt’s that he desired for her. His eye came back to her as the thought passed through his mind. She was gazing straight before her, in among the trees, but it was not the brown buds nor the opening leaves that she saw, he knew well.
What could it be that brought that far-away look to her eyes. Was she looking backwards or forwards? Where were her thoughts wandering? Her look need not have vexed him. It was a little sad, but she smiled as though her thoughts were not altogether painful. He could not but be uneasy as he watched her. He loved her so dearly, she counted for so much in his life, that he longed for her confidence in all things, and he knew that there was something behind that smile which he could not see.
“Weel?” said he as she turned and met his look.
“I should go back to the house, you are thinking? Yes, I am going. But, papa—it will not be very soon? May’s going away, I mean.”
“That is all before us. I can say nothing now. I doubt all that will be taken out of our hands, my lassie. He is in earnest, yon lad.”
“But, papa—it is surely our right to say when it is to be? And May is so young—not nineteen yet.”
“Just her mother’s age, when—”
He rose as if to go, but sat down again and said quietly, “A few months sooner or later will make little difference, and we could hardly expect that he would hear of making it a matter of years. Nor would I wish it.”
“But it will not be—just at once?” said Jean. She had almost said “not till the ‘John Seaton’ comes home.”
“Well, not just at once. There is time enough to decide that.”
Mr Dawson looked doubtfully at his daughter. The look he had wondered at had left her face. She had grown pale and her eyes had the strained and anxious look that had more than once pained him during the winter. The question over which she had wearied herself then was up again.
“Shall I speak to him about Geordie? Shall I tell him how he went away?” But he did not know her thoughts, and fancied she was grieving about her sister.
“My dear, it is hard on you for the moment. But it is not like losing your sister altogether.”
“Papa! It is not May I am thinking about. It is—Geordie. Oh, papa, papa!”
“My dear,” said her father after a pause, “it will do no good to think of one who thinks so little of us. Think of him! We maun ay do that, whether we will or no’. But I whiles think he maun be dead. He could not surely have forgotten us so utterly.”
His last words were almost a cry, and he turned his face away.
“Papa!” said Jean with a gasp, and in another moment she would have told him all. But before she could add a word he was gone—not back by the path to the house, but through the wood the other way, slowly and heavily with his head bowed down. Jean looked after him with a sick heart.
“It is my mother he is thinking of, as well as his son. Oh! I wish I hadna spoken?”
She sat down in a misery of doubt and longing, not sure whether she were glad or sorry that he had given her no chance to say more. How little and light her own anxieties looked in the presence of her father’s sorrow! The silence and self-restraint, which day after day kept all token of suffering out of sight, made it all the more painful and pitiful to see when it would have its way! Miss Jean, his sister, had seen him more than once moved from his silent acceptance of pain and loss, but his daughter had never seen this, and she was greatly startled, and sat sick at heart with the thought that there was no help for his trouble.
For even if she were to tell him now that her brother had gone to sea in the “John Seaton,” there would hardly be comfort in that; for it was more than time that the ship were in port, and though no one openly acknowledged that there was cause for anxiety, in secret many feared that all might not be well with her. No, she must not tell him. The new suspense would be more than he could bear, Jean thought; and she must wait, and bear her burden a little longer alone.
The tears that she could not keep back, did not lighten her heart as a girl’s tears are supposed to do, and though she checked them, with the thought that she must not let their traces be seen in the house, they came in a flood when she found her sister’s arms clasped about her neck and her face hidden on her breast. But she struggled against her emotion for her sister’s sake, and kissed and congratulated her, and then comforted her as their mother might have done. And May smiled again in a little while—indeed what cause had she to cry at all, she asked herself, for surely there never was a happier girl than she.
And they both looked bright enough when they came down to dinner, and so did their father. Jean wondered and asked herself whether the sight of his moved face and the sound of his breaking voice, had not come to her in a dream.
He only came in at the last moment, and if he guessed from May’s shy looks that something had happened to her, he took no notice, and every thing went on as usual, though a little effort was needed against the silence which fell on them now and then.
Of course after dinner, the girls went to the parlour and young Corbett went with them; and when, by and by, their father and Mr Manners came in to get some tea, Jean knew that May’s fate was decided, as far as her father’s consent to her marriage could decide it.
Pretty May blushed and dimpled and cried a little when her father came and kissed her and “clappet” her softly on her shoulder, and in rather an uncertain voice bade “God bless her.”
Then Mr Manners brought her to Jean. “Will you give me your sister?” said he gravely. “Since she seems to have given herself to you, I may as well,” said Jean kissing her sister and keeping back the tears that were wonderfully ready to-night.
“And remember your first word was a promise to stand my friend.”
“Only I don’t think you seem to stand in need of a friend just now,” said Jean laughing.
“Ah! but I may need one before all is done. And you have promised.”