Jan Vedder's Wife

by Amelia E. Barr

But in her own heart Margaret was conscious that under any circumstances she would have shrunk from bringing strangers into the house. Since Jan’s disappearance, she had been but once to kirk, for that once had been an ordeal most painful and humiliating. None of her old friends had spoken to her; many had even pointedly ignored her. Women excel in that negative punishment which they deal out to any sister whom they conceive to have deserved it. In a score of ways Margaret Vedder had been made to feel that she was under a ban of disgrace and suspicion.

Some of this humiliation had not escaped Peter’s keen observation; but at the time he had regarded it as a part of the ill-will which he also was consciously suffering from, and 155 which he was shrewd enough to associate with the mystery surrounding the fate of his son-in-law. Connecting it with what Snorro had said, he took it for further proof against his daughter. Thora’s silence and evident desire to be left to herself, were also corroborative. Did Thora also suspect her? Was Margaret afraid to bring the minister, lest at the last Thora might say something? For the same reason, had Thora’s old intimates been kept away? Sometimes the dying reveal things unconsciously; was Margaret afraid of this? When once suspicion is aroused, every thing feeds it. Twenty-four hours after the first doubt had entered Peter’s heart, he had almost convinced himself that Margaret was responsible for Jan’s death.

He remembered then the stories in the Sagas of the fair, fierce women of Margaret’s race. A few centuries previously they had ruled things with a high hand, and had seldom scrupled to murder the husbands who did not realize their expectations. He knew something of Margaret’s feelings by his own; her wounded self-esteem, her mortification at Jan’s failures, her anger at her poverty and loss of 156 money, her contempt for her own position. If she had been a man, he could almost have excused her for killing Jan; that is, if she had done it in fair fight. But crimes which are unwomanly in their nature shock the hardest heart, and it was unwomanly to kill the man she had loved and chosen, and the father of her child; it was, above all, a cowardly, base deed to thrust a wounded man out of life. He tried to believe his daughter incapable of such a deed, but there were many hours in which he thought the very worst of her.

Margaret had no idea that her father nursed such suspicions; she felt only the change and separation between them. Her mother’s doubt had been a cruel blow to her; she had never been able to speak of it to her father. That he shared it, never occurred to her. She was wrapped up in her own sorrow and shame, and at the bottom of her heart inclined to blame her father for much of the trouble between her and Jan. If he had dealt fairly with Jan after the first summer’s fishing, Jan would never have been with Skager. And how eager he had been to break up her home! After all, Jan had been the injured man; he ought to 157 have had some of her tocher down. A little ready money would have made him satisfied and happy; her life and happiness had been sacrificed to her father’s avarice. She was sure now that if the years could be called back, she would be on Jan’s side with all her heart.

Two souls living under the same roof and nursing such thoughts against each other were not likely to be happy. If they had ever come to open recrimination, things uncertain might have been explained; but, for the most part, there was only silence in Peter’s house. Hour after hour, he sat at the fireside, and never spoke to Margaret. She grew almost hysterical under the spell of this irresponsive trouble. Perhaps she understood then why Jan had fled to Torr’s kitchen to escape her own similar exhibitions of dissatisfaction.

As the months wore on, things in the store gradually resumed their normal condition. Jan was dead, Peter was living, the tide of popular feeling turned again. Undoubtedly, however, it was directed by the minister’s positive, almost angry, refusal to ask Peter before the kirk session to explain his connection with Jan’s disappearance. He had never gone much 158 to Peter’s store, but for a time he showed his conviction of Peter’s innocence by going every day to sit with him. It was supposed, of course, that he had talked the affair thoroughly over with Peter, and Peter did try at various times to introduce the subject. But every such attempt was met by a refusal in some sort on the minister’s part. Once only he listened to his complaint of the public injustice.

“Thou can not control the wind, Peter,” he said in reply; “stoop and let it pass over thee. I believe and am sure thy hands are clear of Jan’s blood. As to how far thou art otherwise guilty concerning him, that is between God and thy conscience. But let me say, if I were asked to call thee before the kirk session on the count of unkindness and injustice, I would not feel it to be my duty to refuse to do so.” Having said this much, he put the matter out of their conversation; but still such a visible human support in his dark hour was a great comfort to Peter.

It was a long and dreary winter. It is amazing how long time can be when Sorrow counts the hours. Sameness, too, adds to grief; there was nothing to vary the days. 159 Margaret went to bed every night full of that despairing oppression which hopes nothing from the morrow. Even when the spring came again her life had the same uniform gray tinge. Peter had his fisheries to look forward to, and by the end of May he had apparently quite recovered himself. Then he began to be a little more pleasant and talkative to his daughter. He asked himself why he should any longer let the wraith of Jan Vedder trouble his life? At the last he had gone to help him; if he were not there to be helped, that was not his fault. As for Margaret, he knew nothing positively against her. Her grief and amazement had seemed genuine at the time; very likely it was; at any rate, it was better to bury forever the memory of a man so inimical to the peace and happiness of the Faes.

The fishing season helped him to carry out this resolution. His hands were full. His store was crowded. There were a hundred things that only Peter could do for the fishers. Jan was quite forgotten in the press and hurry of a busier season than Lerwick had ever seen. Peter was again the old bustling, consequential potentate, the most popular man in 160 the town, and the most necessary. He cared little that Tulloch still refused to meet him; he only smiled when Suneva Glumm refused to let him weigh her tea and sugar, and waited for Michael Snorro.

Perhaps Suneva’s disdain did annoy him a little. No man likes to be scorned by a good and a pretty woman. It certainly recurred to Peter’s mind more often than seemed necessary, and made him for a moment shrug his shoulders impatiently, and mutter a word or two to himself.