Chapter Twenty.
Marion.
That was but the beginning. Mr Dawson might have had a dull time for the next few days, since Mr Manners was more than usually engaged, and Mrs Manners was not permitted to come down-stairs very early. But he did not. There was the boy, and there was Marion, ready to show one another off to the best advantage for his admiration and amusement. And when the boy was carried away by his nurse, Marion still considered herself responsible for the entertainment of the old gentleman of whom, since he had showed himself inclined to unbend, she had ceased to be afraid.
She read to him, she sang to him, she talked to him about many things—about the leaders in the Times, the fishing interests, the prospects of a good harvest. And when other subjects failed there was always Portie to fall back upon. Her interest in all that pertained to her old home and its inhabitants was inexhaustible.
“Oh! we are never at a loss,” she told Mrs Manners, when she asked her how they had got through the day.
It might have come to that, however, if Mrs Manners had not judiciously suggested a change. When one morning Mr Dawson said he must go into the city, his daughter suggested that business and pleasure might be united for once, and he might take Marion. His business took him to the Bank of England, and there Marion found her pleasure. For he took her through all that wonderful place and showed her what was to be seen, to her great delight.
Then they threaded their way through the crowds of Cheapside, and came to the great cathedral which hitherto Marion had only seen in the distance. It was almost too much in one day, she thought, the Bank of England and Saint Paul’s. But did she not enjoy it? They only meant to go in to rest for a minute, but hours passed before they came out again.
Then Mr Dawson took her to lunch at a curious little place near Ludgate Hill, and then they moved through crowds again along Fleet Street till they came to Temple Bar and turned into the Temple.
Oh! the peace and quiet of the place, after the jostling and noise and confusion of the great thoroughfare! Marion fancied herself walking in a dream, as they wandered through the silent courts, and listened to the soft “plash, plash” of the fountain, and then sat down to rest under the trees of the garden.
A score of names famous in history and fiction rose to her lips. They had not said much to one another all the morning. Marion had said only a word now and then in her delight at the wonderful things she saw, but as they sat a while to rest and catch the cool air blowing from the river before they set out for home, her lips were opened, and she talked a good deal more than she would have been likely to do to Mr Dawson, or any one else, in other circumstances.
Foolish talk some of it was, about unreal folk who will still live forever because of the genius that called them into being. Unknown names most of them were to her listener; and in another mood and place, he might have called it all folly or worse. But he listened now with the pleased interest that one gives to the fancies of a child. And all she said was not foolish, he acknowledged as she went on. There were little words now and then, clear and keen and wise, which pleased him well.
But nothing that was seen or said that day pleased him so much as this.
“You have made a day of it together,” said Mrs Manners laughing, as she met them at the door. “You must be tired enough by this time.”
“Yes, I am tired. And no wonder. I think I never had so much pleasure in one day in all my life before.”
She did not say it to him. He only heard it by chance as she passed up the stairs. But he said to himself that there should be more such days for one so easily pleased before he left London.
And so there were. They saw together pictures and people, parks and gardens. They went to Richmond and Kew and Hampton Court, and to more places besides. Mrs Manners went with them sometimes, but their energy and interest were too much for her, and usually she let them go without her. And Mr Dawson was fain to acknowledge to himself that he had a share in the pleasure which he meant to give “the blithe and bonny lassie” at such times.
She was “blithe and bonny” at all times, but when he saw her, as often happened, moving about among the guests that sometimes filled his daughter’s pretty rooms, none more admired and none more worthy of admiration than she, he owned that she was more than that.
They were not just well-dressed, well-mannered nobodies that Mrs Manners entertained. Many of them were men and women who had been heard of in the world for their worth or their wisdom, or for good work of one kind or another done by them. And this blithe and bonny lassie, who enjoyed her play with the child and her sight-seeing with the old man, was not out of place among them. She was young and a little shy of folk that seemed great folk to her, and she was very quiet and silent among them. But many eyes followed her with delight as she moved up and down among them in her pretty evening dress; and she had words of wisdom spoken to her now and then as well as the rest, and she could answer them too, on occasion, as he did not fail to see.
She sang too, not only the old songs that delighted him, but grand, grave music, to which they listened who were far wiser about such things than he. She was a wonder to him at such times, but in the morning she was just as usual, “bonny and blithe” and easily pleased.
“Ye mind me whiles of our Jean,” said he to her one day, and he could not but wonder at the sudden brightness that flashed over her face at the words. Mrs Manners laughed.
“That is the very utmost that can be said, papa. You cannot go beyond that. There is no one like. Jean in. Marion’s eyes.”
“Am I like her? Maybe I may grow like her, sometime,” said the girl softly.
All this time May had been keeping a wise silence with regard to her friend. She believed that he would see all that was good and pleasant in her all the more readily that they were not pointed out to him; and so it proved.
The days passed quickly and happily and came to an end too soon. All this time Mrs Calderwood had been at the seaside with her old friend, who had needed the change, and when they returned Marion was called home. She was glad to go home, but at the same time she acknowledged herself sorry to leave.
“For I think I never had so much pleasure all my life before. Only I am afraid my mother will think I cannot have been much comfort to you.”
“She will be quite mistaken then,” said Mrs Manners laughing and kissing her. “You have been a great comfort to me.”
A great surprise awaited Marion when she reached home. She found her mother pondering gravely over a letter which she held in her hand, and the shadow of care did not—as it ought to have done—pass from her face as her daughter came in. It deepened rather; and in her pre-occupation she almost forgot to return the girl’s greeting.
“Is any thing wrong, mother? Is it Willie?”
“No, no. It is a letter I have gotten from Miss Jean.” She spoke with hesitation. Marion looked wistfully at the familiar handwriting of her old friend.
“Miss Jean asks you to visit her in Portie. It seems her nephew and niece are thinking of a journey, but Miss Dawson doubts about leaving her aunt, who is not strong. Miss Jean thinks she would go if you would promise to go and stay with her a while.”
“Oh! mother! I should so like it.” Marion held out her hand for the letter, but her mother did not offer it to her; she read bits of it here and there instead.
“‘I have said nothing about it to Jean, and shall not till I hear from you. They would likely set off at once if you would promise to let Marion come to me, and that would please you, though—’
“‘If you decide to let her come, she might travel here with young Mr Petrie, who, I hear, is soon to be in London. Though I think myself it might be better for her to come at once, in the company of my brother, who will not likely stay much longer.’”
“Oh, mother! I should so like to go. And is that all that Miss Jean says?”
“All she says about your visit.”
“You don’t wish me to go. Why, mother? It is nae surely that you canna trust me so far away? I am not more foolish than other girls, am I?”
Mrs Calderwood looked at her a moment as though she did not understand what she was saying. Then she laughed and kissed her.
“Nonsense! dear. You are a sensible lassie and discreet. I would be sorry to disappoint Miss Jean, though she has friends enough in Portie one would think. But it is the first favour she has ever asked of me, and many a one she has done me.”
“But, mother, I think this is a favour to us—to me at least. Oh! it seems too good to be true.”
“Well, we will think about it.”
“And, mother, if I should go, I would like—wouldn’t you? rather to go with Mr Dawson than with James Petrie.”
Her mother’s face clouded again.
“What ails you at young Mr Petrie?”
Marion shrugged her shoulders.
“Oh! nothing. Only I like Mr Dawson better—better than I could have believed possible. He has been very good to me. I haven’t told you yet. Mother, I think he must have grown a better man since George came home.”
Her mother said nothing. She did not think well of Mr Dawson. She did not wish to think well of him. When she had heard from Marion that he had come to his daughter’s house, her first impulse was to recall her at once. The impossibility of leaving her old friend, or of permitting Marion to travel alone, prevented her from acting on her first impulse, and when she had time to consider the matter, she saw that it would be better for her to remain. It was not likely that Mr Dawson would see much of her, and whatever he might feel, he would not do otherwise than treat politely his daughter’s guest.
That he should “begood to her,” that he should put himself about, as she knew he must have done, to give her pleasure surprised her, but it did not please her. She had forgiven him, she told herself. At least she bore him no ill-will for the share he and his had had in the trouble of her life, but she wished to have nothing at all to do with him, either as friend or foe.
But Miss Jean’s friendship was quite apart from all this. It had been a refuge to her in times of trouble long before she lost her Elsie, and this invitation was but another proof of her friendship, and she would let her daughter go.
As for her escort—Mrs Calderwood was as averse to accepting James Petrie as such, as her daughter was, though from a different reason. But she was equally averse to any appearance of presuming on the kindness of Mr Dawson. Fortunately the matter was taken out of her hands.
Mrs Manners came the next day empowered to plead that Miss Jean’s invitation should be accepted, and when she found that this was not necessary, she found courage to propose that instead of waiting for any one, Marion should hasten her preparations and go on at once with her father.
Trouble! What possible trouble could it be for her father to sit in the same railway carriage with the child? As for Jamie Petrie—it was easy seen what he was after. But it would be quite too great a grace to grant him at this early stage of—of his plans and projects. Oh! yes. Of course it was all nonsense, but then—
But the nonsense helped to bring Mrs Calderwood to consent that Marion should go at once. And so it was arranged.
It would have pleased Mr Dawson to take Marion with him to Saughleas, but this she modestly but firmly declined, because her mother expected her to go at once to Miss Jean’s house by the sea, and there she was kindly welcomed.
It was like getting home again, she said. The sound of the sea soothed her to sleep, and it woke her in the morning with a voice as familiar as if she had never been away. She was out, and away over the sands to the Tangle Stanes, and had renewed acquaintance with half the bairns in Portie, before Miss Jean was ready for her breakfast.
The bairns had all grown big, and the streets and lanes, the houses and shops, had all grown narrow and small, she thought. But the sea had not changed, nor the sands, nor the far-away hills, nor the sky—which was, oh! so different from the sky in London. Marion had not changed much, her friends thought. Some of them said she was bigger and bonnier, but she was blithe and friendly and “a’e fauld” still—and London hadna spoiled her as it might very easily have done. At any rate she meant to enjoy every hour of her stay, and that was the way she began.
She did not miss Jean either, for George had been called away on business for a few days and when he returned they were to set out on their travels. During these few days Marion saw much of her friend. Jean was graver than she used to be, Marion thought; but she was kind and friendly, and could be merry too, on occasion. They had much to say to one another, and they spent hours together in the old familiar places, in the wood and on the rocks by the sea, and heard one another’s “secrets,” which were only secrets in the sense that neither of them would have been likely to tell them to any one else.
Marion told her friend all that she had been seeing and doing and reading, and some things that she had been hoping, since she went away, and Jean did little more. She told what her brother was doing and the help she tried to give him, and she told of the life that seemed to be opening before them.
Not such a life as they used to plan and dream about for themselves, when they were young; a quiet, uneventful, busy-life, just like the lives of other people. Judging from the look on Jean’s face it did not seem a very joyful life to look forward to. Marion regarded her friend with wistful eyes.
“No. It will never be that, I am sure—just like the lives of other people, I mean.”
“And why not? Well, perhaps not altogether. It will be an easier life than the lives of most people, I suppose. It will not just be a struggle for bread, as it is for so many. And we can do something for others who need help, and we need not be tied to one place every day of the year, as most folk are. And by and by we will be ‘looked up to,’ and our advice will be asked, and folk will say of us, as they say of my father, that ‘they are much respeckit in the countryside.’ And by that time I shall be ‘auld Miss Jean,’ and near done with it all. But it is a long look till then.”
“But it may be all quite different from that. Many a thing may happen to change it all.”
“Oh! many things will happen, as you say. May and her bairns will be coming and going, and the bairns will fit into the places that the years will leave empty, and George will need a staff like my father, and I will grow ‘frail’ like Auntie Jean, and sit waiting and looking at the sea. And ye needna sit lookin’ at me with such pitiful e’en, for who is waiting so happily as she? And yet who will be so glad to go when her time shall come?”
Marion said nothing, but turned her eyes seaward with a grave face. Jean went on.
“Yes, many things will happen, but it will be just the same thing over again. The ships will sail away, and there will be long waiting, and some of them will come home, and some will never come, and the pain will be as hard to bear as if it had never come to many a sore heart before. And some folk will be glad, and some will be at least content, and some will make mistakes and spoil their lives and then just wait on to the end. Marion, what are you thinking about?”
“I’m wondering if it is really you who are saying all that. And I am thinking that is not the way Miss Jean would speak.”
“Oh! Miss Jean! No, she has won safely past all that. But once, long ago, before she had learned the secret of peaceful and patient waiting, she might have been afraid of the days. Come, it is growing cold. Let us go on.”
They rose from the Tangle Stanes where they had been sitting and moved away, and Jean said,—
“And as for you—Are you sure it is to be the grand school after all? Well, you will come back when the heat and burden of the day is over to take your rest in Portie. And you will be a stately old lady, a little worn and sharp perhaps, as is the fate of schoolmistresses; but with fine manners, and wisdom enough for us all. And the new generation of Petries will admire you and make much of you—not quite as the Petries of the present day would like to do,” said Jean laughing. “And behold! there is Master Jamie coming on at a great pace. Shall we let him overtake us? Or shall we go in and see poor old Tibbie and let him pass by?”
They were on their way to Saughleas, where Marion was to pay her first visit. Miss Jean had gone on already in the pony carriage, but the girls were walking round by the shore. There was no reason why Marion should wish to avoid Mr James Petrie, except that she wished no one’s company when she had Jean’s, but she was quite willing to go into Mrs Cairnie’s house where she had been several times already. It was a different looking place from the house to which Miss Jean had taken Mrs Eastwood long ago. Mrs Cairnie’s daughter Annie had returned and was going to remain, and the place was “weel redd up,” and indeed as pleasant a dwelling, of its kind, as one would wish to see. Poor old Tibbie had lately met with a sad mishap, which threatened to put an end to her wanderings, and keep her a prisoner at home for some time to come. Annie had come home to care for her, with the design of earning the bread of both, by making gowns and bonnets for such of the sailors’ wives and fisher folk, as were not equal to the making their Sunday best for themselves.
But a different lot awaited her. She had gone away with the English lady “to better herself,” it was said; but that was only half the reason of her going. She went because she feared to be beguiled into marrying a man whom she loved, but whom she could not respect, because of his enslavement to one besetting sin.
The love of strong drink had brought misery to her home, since ever she could remember. It had driven her brothers away from it and had caused her father’s death and her mother’s widowhood, and she shrank with terror from the thought of living such a life as her mother had lived. When her lover entreated her, saying, that being his wife she might save him from his sin, she did not believe it; but she knew that in her love and her weakness she might yield her will to his, and lose herself without saving him. So she went away with a sore heart, and when her mother’s accident had made it necessary for her to come home again, she hardly could tell whether she was glad or sorry to come.
And the first “kenned face” she saw as she drew near home was the face of her lover. He did not see her. He had stepped from another carriage of the train, into the little station a few miles from Portie. Young George Dawson’s hand rested on his shoulder, for the single minute that he stood there, a very different looking person from the wild lad she had left years ago.
“Yon’s young Saughleas,” she heard one fellow-traveller say to another. “And yon’s Tam Saugster. He’s hame again, it seems.”
“I ha’e heard that he has gathered himsel’ up wonderfu’ this while back. He is a fine sailor-like lad.”
“Ay. He’s his ain man now. And he’ll be skipper o’ the ‘John Seaton’ before she sails again if young George Dawson gets his way, and they say he gets it in most things with his father.”
Then Annie saw the sailor spring back into the carriage again as the signal was given, and she got a glimpse of George Dawson’s kindly face as they passed, and then she saw nothing for a while for the rush of tears which she had much ado to hide.
“The skipper o’ the ‘John Seaton’! Ah! weel, he has forgotten me lang syne, but that is little matter since he has found himsel’.”
But Tam had not forgotten her, and whatever he might have done at the time, he did not now resent her refusal to take as her master one who could not master himself. That very night as she sat in the gloaming listening to her mother’s fretful complaints, and taking counsel with herself as to how they were to live in the coming days, a familiar step came to the door, and Tam lifted the latch and came in without waiting to be bidden.
All the rest was natural enough and easy. The next time Tam sailed he was to sail as master of the “John Seaton,” and he was to sail a married man, he said firmly, and what could Annie do but yield and begin her preparations forthwith. The cottage in which Mrs Cairnie had hitherto had but a room, was taken, and Tam set himself to making it worthy to be the home of the woman he loved.
And a neat and pleasant place it looked when Jean and Marion went in that day. Into the pretty parlour the bride that was to be looked shyly, scarcely venturing to follow them.
It was Marion who displayed to Jean the various pretty and useful things already gathered.
On the mantel-piece was a handsome clock, and over it the picture of a ship with all her canvas spread, sailing over smooth seas, in the full light of the sun of an Arctic summer day. There was a low rocky shore in sight, and the gleam of icy peaks in the distance; but the ship with the sunshine on the spreading sails was the point of interest in the picture—and a pleasant picture it was for the eyes of a sailor’s wife to rest upon. They were both Mr George Dawson’s gift to the bride, Marion told Jean. Jean nodded and smiled.
“Yes, I know,” said she.
“Miss Dawson,” said Annie taking one step over the threshold where she had been standing all the time. “It is all your brother’s work, and you must let me say to you what I canna say to him. Though he had done no more good in the world, it was worth his while to live, to help in the saving such a lad as Tam Saugster.”
“They helped one another,” said Jean softly.
“Ay. That I can easily believe. There are few men like Tam when ance ye ken him.”
“And Jean thinks there are few like George,” said Marion smiling, as they came away.
“And isna that what you think of your brother?” said Jean.
“Oh! yes; and with good reason,” Marion said; and the rest of their talk was of their brothers, till they came to the gate of Saughleas.