“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.