"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 class 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 passed, and though they both strove against it,
there was a shadow of embarrassment 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.
"We shall find you out, never fear, and we winna forget you even if you
should live in London all your life."
Marion laughed and then looked grave.
"But that can never happen," said she.
If Jean was grave and silent for a while at this time, no one noticed it
but her aunt, and she did not remark upon it. Indeed she was grave and
a little sad herself for she greatly missed both mother and daughter,
who had been her dear friends and daily visitors for many a year, and
she confessed to a strange feeling of loneliness in her house by the
sea.
Jean came often to see her and so did George, but she seldom spoke about
the Calderwoods to either of them. Now and then a letter came from
Marion to Jean or to her aunt, but after the very first these letters
said nothing about coming home to Portie again.
And Jean waited. Not unhappily. Far from that, for her life was a busy
one. She had much to do and much to enjoy in her father's house and
beyond it. She strove to forget herself, and to remember others, and
made no one anxious or curious because of her grave looks and her
sadness.
She just waited, telling herself that if so it must be, she would do as
her aunt had done, and wait on till the end.