"No. I think not I'm content as I am."
Her father laughed, a short, uncertain laugh.
"Ay! that will do till the right man comes, and then--we'll see."
"But he may never come. He never came to Auntie Jean."
"Did he no'? Weel, it came to that in the end."
Mr Dawson looked up and met the question in Jean's eyes, but he did not
answer it, and her lips were silent. She did not need an answer.
Though she had heard nothing, she seemed to know how it had been with
her aunt. Disappointment had come to her in her youth. Whether death
had brought it, or change, or misunderstanding, or something harder to
bear than these, she knew not; but however it had come, it had doubtless
been a part of the discipline that had wrought toward the mingled
strength and sweetness of her aunt's character, so beautiful in Jean's
eyes. She forgot her father in thinking about it.
And for the same reason her father forget her. There were none like his
sister in his esteem. None, of all the women he had seen grow old, had
lived a life so useful, or were so beloved and respected in their old
age as she. Her life--except for a year or two--had never been solitary
in a painful sense, he thought. It had been, and was still, full of
interest--bound up with the lives and enjoyment of others, as much as
the life of any married woman of them all.
"And if she were to die to-night, there are more in Portie that would
miss and mourn her than for many mothers of families, and that is not
more than all would acknowledge who ken what she is and what she has
done in the town."
But for his daughter? No, it was not a life like her aunt's that he
desired for her. His eye came back to her as the thought passed through
his mind. She was gazing straight before her, in among the trees, but
it was not the brown buds nor the opening leaves that she saw, he knew
well.
What could it be that brought that far-away look to her eyes. Was she
looking backwards or forwards? Where were her thoughts wandering? Her
look need not have vexed him. It was a little sad, but she smiled as
though her thoughts were not altogether painful. He could not but be
uneasy as he watched her. He loved her so dearly, she counted for so
much in his life, that he longed for her confidence in all things, and
he knew that there was something behind that smile which he could not
see.
"Weel?" said he as she turned and met his look.
"I should go back to the house, you are thinking? Yes, I am going.
But, papa--it will not be very soon? May's going away, I mean."
"That is all before us. I can say nothing now. I doubt all that will
be taken out of our hands, my lassie. He is in earnest, yon lad."
"But, papa--it is surely our right to say when it is to be? And May is
so young--not nineteen yet."
"Just her mother's age, when--"
He rose as if to go, but sat down again and said quietly, "A few months
sooner or later will make little difference, and we could hardly expect
that he would hear of making it a matter of years. Nor would I wish
it."
"But it will not be--just at once?" said Jean. She had almost said "not
till the `John Seaton' comes home."
"Well, not just at once. There is time enough to decide that."
Mr Dawson looked doubtfully at his daughter. The look he had wondered
at had left her face. She had grown pale and her eyes had the strained
and anxious look that had more than once pained him during the winter.
The question over which she had wearied herself then was up again.
"Shall I speak to him about Geordie? Shall I tell him how he went
away?" But he did not know her thoughts, and fancied she was grieving
about her sister.
"My dear, it is hard on you for the moment. But it is not like losing
your sister altogether."
"Papa! It is not May I am thinking about. It is--Geordie. Oh, papa,
papa!"
"My dear," said her father after a pause, "it will do no good to think
of one who thinks so little of us. Think of him! We maun ay do that,
whether we will or no'. But I whiles think he maun be dead. He could
not surely have forgotten us so utterly."
His last words were almost a cry, and he turned his face away.
"Papa!" said Jean with a gasp, and in another moment she would have told
him all. But before she could add a word he was gone--not back by the
path to the house, but through the wood the other way, slowly and
heavily with his head bowed down. Jean looked after him with a sick
heart.
"It is my mother he is thinking of, as well as his son. Oh! I wish I
hadna spoken?"
She sat down in a misery of doubt and longing, not sure whether she were
glad or sorry that he had given her no chance to say more. How little
and light her own anxieties looked in the presence of her father's
sorrow! The silence and self-restraint, which day after day kept all
token of suffering out of sight, made it all the more painful and
pitiful to see when it would have its way! Miss Jean, his sister, had
seen him more than once moved from his silent acceptance of pain and
loss, but his daughter had never seen this, and she was greatly
startled, and sat sick at heart with the thought that there was no help
for his trouble.
For even if she were to tell him now that her brother had gone to sea in
the "John Seaton," there would hardly be comfort in that; for it was
more than time that the ship were in port, and though no one openly
acknowledged that there was cause for anxiety, in secret many feared
that all might not be well with her. No, she must not tell him. The
new suspense would be more than he could bear, Jean thought; and she
must wait, and bear her burden a little longer alone.
The tears that she could not keep back, did not lighten her heart as a
girl's tears are supposed to do, and though she checked them, with the
thought that she must not let their traces be seen in the house, they
came in a flood when she found her sister's arms clasped about her neck
and her face hidden on her breast. But she struggled against her
emotion for her sister's sake, and kissed and congratulated her, and
then comforted her as their mother might have done. And May smiled
again in a little while--indeed what cause had she to cry at all, she
asked herself, for surely there never was a happier girl than she.
And they both looked bright enough when they came down to dinner, and so
did their father. Jean wondered and asked herself whether the sight of
his moved face and the sound of his breaking voice, had not come to her
in a dream.
He only came in at the last moment, and if he guessed from May's shy
looks that something had happened to her, he took no notice, and every
thing went on as usual, though a little effort was needed against the
silence which fell on them now and then.
Of course after dinner, the girls went to the parlour and young Corbett
went with them; and when, by and by, their father and Mr Manners came
in to get some tea, Jean knew that May's fate was decided, as far as her
father's consent to her marriage could decide it.
Pretty May blushed and dimpled and cried a little when her father came
and kissed her and "clappet" her softly on her shoulder, and in rather
an uncertain voice bade "God bless her."
Then Mr Manners brought her to Jean. "Will you give me your sister?"
said he gravely. "Since she seems to have given herself to you, I may
as well," said Jean kissing her sister and keeping back the tears that
were wonderfully ready to-night.
"And remember your first word was a promise to stand my friend."
"Only I don't think you seem to stand in need of a friend just now,"
said Jean laughing.
"Ah! but I may need one before all is done. And you have promised."