The Twa Miss Dawsons Part 30

"Well!" said Hugh, drawing still near as she receded. "'Except, perhaps,' whom?"

"I except no one that ever I saw, for there is no one that ever I saw who, in all things--in mind, body, and estate, as you say--I would think fit for Miss Dawson. But what I was going to say was--except, perhaps-- George--only he is her brother, ye ken."

"George!" echoed, many voices.

"And what's George more than another?" asked Jack scornfully. "She'll be saying next, that there's naebody like _him_ in all Scotland."

And then Marion, glancing up at the window beneath which they had been sitting, met the wondering look of Mr Dawson.

"He must have heard every word," said Grace in a whisper.

Marion turned and fled to seek comfort with Miss Jean.

They went away to the Castle, and Miss Dawson went with them; Captain Harefield came to the house soon after they set out, but he did not follow them, though Mr Dawson suggested that he might easily overtake them before they reached the place. It was Mr Dawson himself he had come to see; and when they all came back, and the young folk had had their tea and were gone home together in the moonlight, her father had something to say to Jean.

"It's a comfort that you can just leave it to Jean herself," said his sister, when he told his news to her. Of what her own opinion might be she said nothing, nor was she curious to hear what Mr Dawson might think now about the chance that his daughter had of becoming the wife of Captain Harefield. "It is a thing that she must decide for herself; and indeed she will let no one else decide it."

There was a measure of comfort in that view of the matter. For though Mr Dawson was ambitious for his daughter, Captain Harefield as a man with expectations was by no means so interesting to him personally as he had been last year when he had none. He knew by Jean's face at the first word spoken, that her aunt was right.

"I gave him his answer last year," said she.

"But it's no' an unheard of thing that a woman should change her mind,"

said her father dryly.

"I have had no reason to change my mind, but many reasons against it.

Fancy my leaving you and George and the happy life we are just beginning, to go away with a stranger to folk that would look down on me, and think he had thrown himself away?"

"I could make it worth their while to think otherwise." But Jean shook her head. "Last year you might, when he had nothing."

"As for his friends--ye need ha'e little to do with them. I dare say none o' them can ha'e a higher sense o' their ain importance than his sister, Mrs Eastwood, and I think ye could hold your own with her."

"If it were worth my while. But, papa--he is nothing in the world to me."

"He is not a clever man, I ken that. But I like him. He is sweet tempered, and he is a gentleman, and he cares for you. And I think, with you to stand by him, he might be a good man and a useful."

"But, papa--the weariness of it, even if I cared for him."

"But that might come in time."

"No, papa. I am not--going with him. He will find some one who will care for him, and who will fill the high position that he can give her better than I could do."

In his heart the father did not believe that, but he only said,--

"Very likely. You must please yourself I only wish you to ken your ain mind, and understand what you are refusing. He will be Sir Percy Harefield, and there may come a time when you will regret your refusal."

"I don't think it, papa."

"As for not wishing to leave your brother and me--George will marry sometime, and then you will be but second with him, though he may be first with you."

"Of course he will marry, papa. And I will be 'Auntie Jean' to his bairns. And I'll ay have you, papa."

"But, Jean, I want you to understand. When George marries it is my intention to give up Saughleas to him. His wife will be mistress here then."

He watched her face as he said this. She was not looking at him, but out at the window, standing in the full light. She turned to him with a smile like sunshine on her face.

"Then I could live with Auntie Jean when you didna need me any more.

'The twa Miss Jean Dawsons!' Wouldna ye like that, Auntie Jean? But, papa," she added gravely, "it wouldna please George to hear you speak of giving up Saughleas to him."

"He need not hear it till the right time comes. There need be no haste.

His choice will be the wiser the longer he waits, let us hope."

"And you are not vexed with me, papa?"

"So that you are sure o' yourself. That is the main thing. You might take longer time to think about it."

"No, no. A longer time would make no difference. It would not be fair to Captain Harefield--and I am quite sure of myself."

Miss Jean, as her manner was, had kept silence during the whole interview.

"Her time will come, I dare say, but she is fancy-free at present," said her father as Jean left the room.

"She has done wisely this time," said her aunt. "And it is well that she should wait till her time come."

"That is well over," said Jean to herself. "And I can wait--yes, though it be all my life--if so it must be."

For Jean had found herself out long before this time--before the "John Seaton" had come home even. She knew that she "cared for" Willie Calderwood as she could care for no other man. And since that night when they had clasped hands and looked into each other's eyes she had not been ashamed of her love. For there had been more than the gladness of home coming in Willie's eyes, his hand-clasp had told of more than friendship.

True he had guarded eyes and hands and voice since then, and he might keep silence still for years--there was cause enough, Jean acknowledged, remembering "bonny Elsie." But he "cared for her," and she could wait.

"Patiently? Yes, hopefully, joyfully," she had told herself often, and now she said it again as she sang softly to herself as she went about the house.

But that night her brother came home with a sadder face than usual, for he had heard sad news, he said. Willie Calderwood had declined the command of the "John Seaton." He was about to sail as second officer in one of the great ocean steamships. Indeed he had already sailed, for his note to George was written at the last moment, he said; and he must cross the wide Atlantic twice before she should see him again.

"It is not so bad as a year's voyage to the north," she told herself.

"Portie is his home while his mother is here and Marion."

But he had spoken no word to her before he went, as he might have done, if he had been going away to the dangers of the Arctic seas. That was the pain to her. But she comforted herself. Though she knew his pride was strong, she thought that his love would prove stronger still, and he would speak when the right time came.

But when Willie had crossed the sea twice, and twice again, still he did not come to Portie. He went instead to London, and there he fell in with an aunt of his father's who, in years long past, had been the wife of a London merchant, but who was a childless widow now. She had been left with a large house and a small income more than thirty years ago, when she was young and courageous, and she had put aside all the traditions of the cla.s.s into which marriage had brought her, and had fallen back on the belief in which she had been brought up in her home in the north, that honest work honourably followed was a blessing to be thankful for, rather than a burden to be borne.

So her head and her hands and her house were all put to use, and she had lived a busy and a happy life since then. But she was growing old now, and her heart longed for her own land and kindred, so when she saw Willie, and heard of his mother who was a widow, and his young sister Marion, she begged them to come to her for a while.

It is doubtful whether Mrs Calderwood would have had the courage to accept the invitation, if the thought of leaving Portie had not been already familiar to her; and it is equally doubtful whether she would have had the courage to go away, if this invitation had not come. It was for a visit that they were going, she said, but her house was given up, the few things which she valued and could not take with her, were safely put away in an empty room in Miss Jean's house. And no one knew when she might be expected in Portie again.

Jean had not often seen Mrs Calderwood since the day she had gone to ask Marion to visit her at the time her sister May was in London, but she saw her now in her aunt's house, where the last few days of the mother and daughter were pa.s.sed, and though they both strove against it, there was a shadow of embarra.s.sment between them.

"We'll maybe see May in London, and we'll be sure to see you when you come to visit her there," Marion said, including both George and Jean in her words.

"London is a large place, and Mrs Manners has her own friends," said Mrs Calderwood.