The Twa Miss Dawsons

by Margaret M. Robertson

There had been something said, before all this came to pass between them, of the lad’s being sent to London for a while, to learn how business was done in a great banking-house, one of the partners of which was a friend of his father; and after a time he was heard of there. But he did not write to his father directly, and he never drew a shilling of the money that his father had deposited in his name.

He did not stay long in his place in the London bank, but went away, leaving no trace behind him, and was lost to them all; and it was long before his name was spoken by his father again. Even Miss Jean, having no words of comfort to put with it, never named to him the name of his son, for whom she knew he was grieving with anger and pain unspeakable. It was to be doubted, Jean thought, whether these days were not longer, and drearier, and “waur to thole” than even the days that had followed the death of the mother of the lad.

But they had to be borne, and he left himself in these days little time for brooding over his troubles. He devoted himself to business, with all his old earnestness, and wealth flowed in upon him, and the fear was strong in his sister’s heart, that he was beginning, in the desolation that had fallen upon him, to love it for its own sake. He added to Saughleas a few fields on one side, and a farm or two on the other, which the necessities of the owners had put into the market, at this time; but it was more to oblige these needy men, than because he wanted their land. He had the money in hand, he said indifferently to his sister, and the land would ay bring its price. But he took little pleasure in Saughleas for a while.

When Geordie had been gone a year and more, his sisters came home from school. They had been away long, and their father had, as he said, to make their acquaintance over again. They had changed from merry girls of fifteen and sixteen, into grown up young ladies,—“fine ladies” their father called them to their aunt, and a good many people in Portie, called them “fine ladies” also, for a while. They looked to be fine ladies, with their London dresses, and London manners, and some folk added, their “London pride.” They held their heads high, and carried themselves erect and firmly as they walked, and spoke softly and in “high English,” which looked like pride to some of their old friends, who were more than half afraid of the young ladies of Saughleas, they said. But it soon came to be known that what looked like pride was more than half shyness, and as for the “high English,” the kindly Scotch fell very readily from their lips on occasion.

It cannot be said that they made themselves very happy in Saughleas for a time. They came home in November, and that is a dreary month on the east coast, indeed all the winter is dreary there. There were gay doings in the best houses in Portie to welcome them home, and they enjoyed them well. For they had only been school-girls in London, and the gayeties they had been permitted to mingle in there, had been mostly of the kind which are supposed to blend improvement of some sort with the pleasure to be enjoyed, and though they doubtless valued such opportunities and made good use of them, both for pleasure and improvement, the gayeties of Portie were quite different and more to their taste. They were young and pretty and gay, and the kindness and the admiration so freely bestowed on them were very pleasant to them both. But they would have preferred the house in the High-street, where they had all been born, in these first days, for their home.

Saughleas was dull and dreary in the short winter days, and oh! how they missed their mother! It was like losing her again, to come home to the great empty house, which their father left almost before the sun rose for weeks together, not to return again till the lamps had been lighted for hours in the wide hall.

And Geordie! When they had been at Saughleas a month or more, their father had never spoken his name, and when Jean, the eldest and bravest of the sisters, putting great force upon herself, asked him when her brother was coming home, he answered so coldly, and with words so hard and bitter, that her heart sank as she heard. They had known for some time that something had gone wrong between them. Geordie had told them that, when he had gone to see them in London; but the sad story of poor Elsie Calderwood they had never heard. They mourned for their brother, and longed for his coming home, thinking that the happy days that were gone would come again with him.

Though the estate of Saughleas was small, the house was both large and stately. The last owner had put into the house, the money which should have been given to enrich the land, and make a beginning of the prosperity of the family which he had hoped to found. So it was like a castle almost, but it was little like a home.

The two or three great landed proprietors in the countryside were great people in their own esteem, and in the general esteem also; and George Dawson, notwithstanding Saughleas, was just the merchant and banker of the High-street to them—a man much respected in his own place, and he was not out of place on occasion, at the table of any of them all. But an interchange of civilities on equal terms between the ladies of the families was not likely to take place, nor was this greatly to be desired. It might have been different if their mother had lived, they said to one another; for in their remembrance of her, she was superior in every way to any lady of them all. But they were quite content with the society of Portie, and would have been content with the house in the High-street as well.

Mr Dawson asked his sister to come and live in his house when his daughters came home, but she declined to do so. They did not need her as mistress of the house, and she believed that her influence over them would be more decided and salutary should she remain in her own house. They were good bairns, she said, who meant to do right, and though they might whiles need a word of advice, or a restraining touch, it must be their own guidance that their father must lippen to, and not hers. And Auntie Jean was right.