The Twa Miss Dawsons

by Margaret M. Robertson

The name of Willie Calderwood had never been spoken between the sisters since the day when, standing on the high rocks above the Tangle Stanes, they had watched the “John Seaton” making out to sea. Jean was silent for one reason, and May for another; and there were reasons enough that both could see why silence was best, to prevent either of them from feeling such silence strange.

Willie Calderwood had been their companion and their brother’s chief friend in the days when they all played together on the rocks and sands of Portie—in the days before George Dawson had admitted into his heart the thought, that the wealth he had won, and the estate he had made his own, gave his children a right to look higher for their friends than among their less prosperous neighbours. But his children were not of the sort that forget easily, nor were the Calderwoods the sort of friends to be easily forgotten. Willie had always been a leader among them, a handsome, fearless, kindly lad, and he became a hero to them all, when he went to sea and came home to tell of shipwreck first, and then of strange adventures among strange people; of hunger and cold and suffering, and escape at last.

A hero! There were many such heroes in Portie who had suffered all these things and more—old men and men old before their time who had passed their lives in whaling ships on the northern seas; who had been wounded or maimed in battles with northern bears and walruses, and with northern frost and snow; and even they made much of the lad who had begun his battles so early. So no wonder that he was a hero to his chosen companions and friends.

“They were jist a’ bairns thegither,” as Miss Jean had said; but it was during that summer, the last of his mother’s life, that young George lost his heart to bonny Elsie, and it was during that summer too, that the visionary glory that rested on the name of the returned sailor carried captive the imagination of his sister Jean. She did not forget him while she was away from Portie; but when she returned they did not fall into their old friendly ways with one another.

That would have been impossible even if the sad story of George and Elsie had never been to tell; for Jean was a woman by this time, and she was Miss Dawson of Saughleas, and he was but the second mate of a whaling ship; a brave man and a good sailor, but not the equal of the rich man’s daughter as times were now. So they seldom met, and when they did meet, it was not as it used to be in the old times between them. He never sought her out when they met in the houses of their mutual friends, and when the circumstances of the moment brought them together, he was polite and deferential and not at his ease. Jean would fain have been friendly and tried to show it, and not knowing then of her father’s anger, because of his son’s love, she could not but wonder at her ill success.

“Maybe he is like Tibbie Cairnie, and thinks you are set up with London pride,” said May laughing. “If I were you, I would ask him.”

But Jean never asked him, and he was not long in Portie after they returned. But when he came back again it was very much the same. He was at home the greater part of the winter before he sailed with the “John Seaton,” and they met him often at other houses, though he never went to Saughleas. There were times when they seemed to be felling back into their old friendliness, and Jean, who was noted in their small circle for the coolness with which she accepted or rejected the compliments, or the graver attentions of some who seemed to seek her favour, grew gentle and winning, and even playful or teasing, when any movement in the room brought the young sailor to her side.

“She is just the Jean of the old days,” poor Willie said to himself, and he could say nothing better than that. They fell back at such times into the kindly speech of their childhood “minding” one another of this or that happy day when they were “a’ bairns thegither.” They could say little of Elsie who was dead, or of George who was lost, in a bright room with others looking on, but the tears that stood in Jean’s “bonny een” told more than words could have done of her love and sorrow for them both. If she had known all, she might have thought it wise to say nothing; but her words and her wet eyes were as drops of sweet to the lad in the midst of much bitterness. He did not always go home cheered and comforted after the sweetness; but Jean did, telling herself that at last they were friends as they used to be—till they met again, and then the chances were, that her “friend” was as silent and deferential and as little eager, apparently, to seek her company as ever; and she could only comfort herself with the thought that the fault was not hers.

So it went on strangely and sadly enough for a while, and then Jean began to see that though he shunned rather than sought her, he seemed friendly enough with her sister. He seemed to seek her out, and to have much to say to her; and why he should be friendly with May and not with her, she could not easily understand.

“Unless—and even then?” said Jean to herself with a little sinking of the heart.