The Twa Miss Dawsons Part 22

There was nothing to be seen from Miss Jean's usual seat, but the sea and one rocky cape in the northern distance. "It is company to me,"

said she. "It is ay changing."

"But it is dreary whiles, aunt, very dreary, when the wind blows loud, and the winter is here." Miss Jean smiled.

"I think winter makes less difference to my outlook than it does to yours, Jean, my dear. It's ay the sea, and ay the same, yet ay changing ilka day o' the year, be it summer or winter. It is like a friend's face to me now after all that's come and gone."

It was not easy getting below the surface of things, because their thoughts were of the kind not easily spoken. Miss Jean said least, but she looked and listened and was moved by the soft flowing English speech of their new friend, in a way that filled her with amazement, "after all these years," she said to herself.

By and by May came in, leaving Hugh Corbett in the pony carriage at the door. She hesitated a moment, shy, but smiling, on the threshold, and then Mr Manners led her forward to be kissed and congratulated and made much of by her aunt.

"Ye'll try and be a good wife--as your mother was," said Miss Jean softly, and she gave a tearful, appealing glance toward him who had won the child's heart.

"I love her dearly," said he gently. "And I will care for her first always."

"I believe ye," said Miss Jean.

What with his good, true face, his kindly ways and winning-speech, he had won her good word, as easily as he had won Jean's "who liked him at the first glance," as she had told her father.

Mr Manners' visit was necessarily brief, but when he went away, he carried with him the good-will, and more than the good-will, of them all. Even young Corbett, who had at first resented the break made in the pleasant life they had been living of late by his monopolising Miss May's time and attention, agreed with the rest at last. They became mutually interested over sh.e.l.ls and seaweeds, beetles and birds' nests, and they were very friendly before Mr Manners went away.

Before his departure Mr Manners put Jean's friends.h.i.+p to the test.

"If you are on my side, I shall be able to bring about that on which I have set my heart, and I must remind you of your promise."

Jean laughed.

"It seems that you are like to get that on which you have set your heart without the help of any one."

"Ah! but how would it have been if you had set yourself against me? Or if you were to do so even now?"

"It is too late for that now, and I don't think you are much afraid."

"Jean," said he gravely, "I want my May for my very own on the first day of August." Jean was not so startled as she might have been. "I did not think you would be willing to wait very long. But the first of August! That is not much more than three months. It will look like haste."

There were, it seemed, many good reasons for that which looked like haste. The chief one was this: Mr Manners looked forward to two full months of leisure after that time, which could not happen again for another year. He had set his heart on carrying his bonny May to Switzerland for the whole two months.

"Think what that would be in comparison to a winter marriage, and then straight to a dull house in a London street!"

"Will she find it dull, do you think?" asked Jean smiling. "Ah! that may be very possible, even though I know she will go willingly. Miss Dawson, I feel as if I were guilty of wrong-doing in thinking to take my darling from a home like this, to such a one as I can give her, even though I believe she loves me."

But Jean smiled still. "You need not fear."

"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 sh.o.r.e 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 s.h.i.+p; 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.

"The breaks, Which humour interposed, too often makes,"

never came between these two, and her judgment guided him, and her conscience restrained him, oftener than either of them knew.

Long ago he had spoken to her about some change that he wished to make in his will, and some words of hers spoken at the time, hindered him from obeying his own impulse in the matter. He knew that it was not wise to delay the right settlement of his affairs, and now the arrangements necessary in regard to his daughter's marriage portion brought the matter up again, and made some decision inevitable.

That his son was dead, or worse than dead, he could not but believe, now that another year had gone bringing no word from him. In his silent broodings, he had in a sense got accustomed to the misery of the thought. He was dead, or, if he lived, he was lost to him forever.

Even if he were living, his long silence proved to his father that he never meant to come home while his father lived.

He might come afterwards; and then his coming might bring trouble upon his sisters, unless all things were settled beyond the power of change.

And so it must be settled. But, oh! the misery of it!

To think that his only son might come when he was dead, and stand where they had stood together at his mother's grave, and have only hard thoughts of his father! How could it ever have come to such a pa.s.s between them! The memory of those first days of their estrangement, seemed to him now like a strange and terrible dream. Had he been hard on his son? He was but a lad,--he repeated many a time,--he was but a lad, and he had loved him so dearly.

Nothing could be changed now. In the silence of the night, often amid the business of the day, his heart grew soft towards his son, and he repented of his anger and his hardness toward him. But nothing could be changed now, and the future of his daughters must be made safe against possible trouble when he should be no more.

He had nothing that was new to say to his sister, except that the year that had gone by bringing no word of him, made it less likely that they would ever hear from him again; and she could only listen sadly and acknowledge that it was even so.

But though there was not much that was new to be said, they were rarely left alone together that their talk did not turn on this matter. Mr Dawson's mind was so full of all that must be gone into and arranged in view of what he had to do, that he was sure to speak of it, and to dwell upon it, more sometimes than was wise. And so it happened that Jean, coming in from a solitary walk in the gloaming to the parlour, where there was no light, was startled by hearing her father say,--

"I think that will be a just division. I will make it up to her aster, but it is Jean who must have the land. I will not divide, and I will not burden the land."

Jean heard the words without fully taking in their meaning, till her aunt said in her grave, firm voice,--

"And if he ever should come home, you may trust to my Jean to deal kindly and justly with her brother."

"Papa," said Jean coming forward, "I heard what you were saying."

Mr Dawson did not answer for a moment, then he said, "It might have been as well if ye hadna heard. But a while sooner or later can make less difference than it would if ye werna a woman o' sense."

"Papa! Have you forgotten--Geordie?" Her father answered nothing. Her aunt put out her hand and touched hers, and Jean knew that the touch meant that silence was best. But she could not keep silence.

"Papa, you think that he is dead, but he is not. He will come home again. And how could we look him in the face if we were to wrong him when he is away! As for me, I will never take what is his by right-- never. You must give the land to whom you will, but not to me." Still her father did not utter a word. "Whisht, la.s.sie," said her aunt; "ye dinna ken what ye are saying. Dinna grieve your father, Jean."

But Jean was "beside herself," her aunt thought.