The Twa Miss Dawsons Part 11

"If I were only sure."

Both were silent for a time.

"Would I be better able to give help or counsel to you or--to any one-- if I were to hear what you could tell?"

Jean shook her head.

"Nothing can be done--at least not now," said she sadly. "Weel then, dearie, dinna speak. Whiles troubles take shape and strength in the utterance and grow persistent, that might have died out or come to little in silence. If a time should come that you are sure that speaking would do any good, tell me then."

"It would do no good now. And I am not sure that there is any thing to tell."

There was a long silence between them. Jean was thinking of the "John Seaton" sailing away with her brother to the northern seas. Miss Jean was thinking of the "John Seaton" too, and of Willie Calderwood, with a sad heart.

"They were just a' bairns thegither I thought, but I little kenned. And wae's me! for my bonny Jean, gin she has to go through all that--and wae's me! for her father as well. No' that the pain and the trouble need be feared for them, so that they are brought through--and no unfilial bitterness left to sicken my bairn's heart forever more; but I mustna speak, or let her speak. I think she hardly kens yet how it is with her, but she would ken at the first word; silence is best."

And silence it was. But by and by more was said about the story of those two "for whom life was ended," as Jean said sadly. She was not angry at her father's part in the matter, as her aunt had feared she might be. It could not have been otherwise, looking at things as he looked at them, she acknowledged, and she grieved for him all the more, knowing that there must mingle much bitterness, perhaps remorse, with his sorrow for his son.

"If my mother had but lived!" she said sadly. "Ay, la.s.sie! But He kens best who took her hence where we'll a' soon follow. We make muckle ado about our gains and our pains, our loves and our losses, forgetting that 'our days are as a shadow, and there is no abiding.'"

"A shadow to look back upon, auntie, but a reality as we are going through with them day by day."

"Ay! that's true, my la.s.sie, and a stern reality whiles. The comfort is that it is a' ordered for us."

Jean shook her head with a doubtful smile.

"Only it is not till afterward that we get the good of that knowledge."

"And coming afterward it comes ower late, ye think, la.s.sie. But bide ye still and see. And indeed no one need wait till afterwards to know the blessedness o' just lying quiet in His hands. And ye needna wait a day for that, my dear bairn."

If Jean had spoken, the tears must have come; so she rose and kissed her aunt silently, and then went away.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

WILLIE CALDERWOOD.

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 pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances 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.

She did not follow out her thought at the moment, but it came back to her afterwards, and on the high rocks as they watched the departing ship, she thought she saw it all clearly, and that she was content. He was her friend, and if he were May's lover, he would still be her friend, and all the more because of that, and time would make all things that might hinder their friendship now, clear to them both.

But she did not speak to her sister about this. It was for May to speak to her, she thought at first, and after a while it would not have been easy to speak, and on the whole, silence was best. Then as she listened to her aunt's story of their brother and Elsie, and of their father's opposition and anger, she was not sure that silence was best. How much of it May might know, she could not tell; but sooner or later she must know it all, and if there was trouble before her, it would make it none the easier to bear, but all the heavier, the longer the knowledge was kept from her. But she shrank from speaking all the same.

"I will tell her to-night," she said as she sat by her aunt's side. But she did not, nor the next, and even on the third night she sat long in the dark when the house was silent, listening to the wind among the trees, and the dull sound of the sea, and the painful beating of her own heavy heart, before she found courage to go into her sister's room.

"If she is asleep, I will not wake her."

But May was not asleep. She had been lingering over various little things that she had found to do, and had only just put out her light when her sister softly opened the door. She seemed to sleep, however, as Jean leaned over to listen, but as she turned away, May laughed softly.

"Well, what is it? I dinna think I have done any thing so very foolish to-day--not more than usual, I mean."

For, in her elder sisterly care for her, Jean thought it wise to drop a word of counsel now and then, and this was the hour she usually chose to do it. She stooped down and kissed her as she turned, a circ.u.mstance that did not very often occur between them. For though they loved one another dearly, they were--after the manner of their kin and country-- shy of any expression of love or even of sympathy in the way of caresses.

"Is there any thing wrong?" said May startled. "Did any one ever tell you about--about our Geordie and Elsie Calderwood, May? Auntie Jean has been speaking about them to me lately."

It was not a very good beginning, but she did not know what better to say. May raised herself up, and looked eagerly in her sister's face.

"I have heard something. Do you mean that you only heard it the other day?"

"Tell me all you know," said Jean, leaning down on the bed beside her.

"And why did you not tell me before?"

"I did not like--and I thought you must ken about it."

"Ah! yes. It is sad enough. No wonder you didna like to speak about it. But tell me now all you know."

And May did so, and it was very nearly all there was to tell. She had heard the story, not straight through from beginning to end, as Jean had heard it from her aunt, but from words dropped now and then by one and another of their friends. And Jean could not but wonder that, May having heard so much, she herself should have heard so little. But May knew little of the part her father had taken in the separation of the lovers, how angry he had been, and how determined to put an end to what he called the folly of his son. It was just this that May ought to know, and Jean told it in as few words as possible. She wondered a little at the way in which her sister seemed to take it all.

"Poor Elsie! But she might have died even if she had not been sent to the school. How little folk ken! They say in Portie that her mother sent her away that she might learn things that would fit her to be the wife of young Mr Dawson, and by and by the lady of Saughleas--and that her pride got a fall. It is a sorrowful story, Jean."

"And the saddest part of it to us is, that poor Geordie is lost and gone from us. And even if he were to come home, it might be little better."

"Is my father angry yet, Jean? Or is he sorry? Would he do the same if it were all to do over again?"

"Who can say! He has many thoughts about it, doubtless, and some of them cannot but be bitter enough. But as to his doing differently--"

Jean shook her head.

"But, Jean, I canna blame my father altogether. His heart was set on his only son, and George was but a boy."

"Yes, and Aunt Jean says if he had but waited with patience my father might have yielded at last."

"Or George might have changed. He had seen no one else, and though Elsie was good, and bonny too, there was a great difference between her and--and some that we have seen,--ladies educated and accomplished as well as beautiful. And, Jean, I canna but be sorry for my father."