TAKING A REST.
But there was no "company" invited to the Harrisons' on the following
Sunday.
On the preceding Thursday, which was just two days after the evening she
was married, Daisy had an impulse to go and see Jean. By arrangement
with the Heathcotes, no notice of the wedding had been allowed to get to
the papers; and when Daisy, in a white dress, popped in through the
kitchen door of the Harrison house on Thursday afternoon, all Jean knew
was that she had mysteriously slipped out on Tuesday evening and had not
been seen since.
Daisy bounced over to hug her; but the honest Scot drew herself up
sternly, and put out a hand.
"It's no like ye," she said, "to traipze oot like yon, an' gie the good
leddy no notice--and her on the broad of her back now, at death's door,
too. I ha' made the beds mysel' and sweepit up, forbye my ain work, for
twa fu' days now, to save her the worry of havin' a stranger aboot, in
her last hours."
"Last hours!" exclaimed Daisy, her breath catching, in the impulsive
wave of self-reproach that swept over her, "Is she--dying, then,
Jeanie? Why, I--"
"Ay," Jean set her great knuckles against her hip as she stirred the
broth she was making for the sickroom; "ye reck of naebody so long as ye
can please yersel', an gang oot an' in, and come an' go, withoot a 'by
your leave' tae ony person.... An' how come ye tae be here, all fettled
up, in the middle of the afternoon? Are ye no workin'? An' if no, what
are ye daein'? Say!" Jean turned, gripped Daisy by the shoulders
suddenly and hard, and studied her with brows knit and eyes ablaze,
"ye'll answer me _that_ this minute--what are ye daein' for your bed an'
board? If all's no richt, man! I'll tur-rn ye across my knee an' skelp
ye, like a bairn! I'll save ye from the street, or I'll no leave a whole
inch o' hide on your back!"
"Is the Missis dying?" Daisy repeated, tears now in her eyes.
"Ay," said Jean, shaking her, "an' all the greetin' in the warld'll no
save her the now. But come! Aboot yersel'! Oot wi't, I say!"
"Oh, I'm all right, Jean," said Daisy, still thinking about Lady
Harrison, "I'm married.... Say, can I go upstairs with you, when you
take up her broth, and see her?"
"Married!" Jean sat, almost stumbled, into a chair behind her. In this
position, she stared at Daisy for a moment; then murmured, half, as it
were, to herself, "Lassie, lassie! ye're a mystery to me. I absolutely
gie ye up, as I wad a conundrum book wi' no key. Wha's the lad? Yon
jitney man?"
"No." Daisy dimpled a little.
"No?" Jean, her elbow on the side-table, leaned forward with renewed
interest; "I thocht, now, it could be nane other than Curly Head Jamie.
Well, then, ye've no done the impossible, I take it, and hookit Nicky
Cluett, have ye? Man! if ye ha' got him, yon's a laddie will soon gie ye
your fine hoose an' motor-car. He's drawin' in the siller with a
hand-rake, like, these days."
"It's not Nicky," said Daisy, smoothing out her sash and putting her
head a little on one side.
"Weel, ye micht have set your cap for him, onyway," Jean commented, as
she reached over and gave the broth a little stir to keep it from
burning; "Baby Jock tells me it's common talk ye made a hit wi' Nick,
you nicht at the dance. Wha did ye tak', then, if it wasna Nick? Oot
wi't. Ye've fair got me on pins an' needles. Do I ken him?"
"Well, I don't know," said Daisy, protracting her mystery with a teasing
delight; "may be you do. Yes, I think you know him. It's-- it's--" Daisy
leaned over, and said the name dramatically, right in Jean's ear.
The Scotswoman looked at her hard: sternness returning to every
feature.
"I doubt ye been misconductin' yersel' after all," she said, levelly and
coldly, "I kenned it when ye cm' in through yon door. Tellin' me a pack
o' lies'll no improve matters--"
"I'm telling you the truth," Daisy asseverated, warmly, "I didn't think
you'd go and insult me, Jean!"
The other eyed her doubtfully. "I'd fair loe tae believe ye, lassie,"
she breathed, "but the thing's impossible. It sounds like a story out of
a book. Why, besides his money an' his social position, he's sixty years
old, if he's a day--an' forbye, he's an ingrown bachelor. He'd ha'
wedded long or now, if it had been in him to marry. He--he hasna offered
to keep ye--that's not what ye mean, is it? But, no--I ken fine he
wouldna dae that. He's an honorable man, Sir William Ware."
Daisy regarded Jean a second or two; then went over, sat plumply down on
the elder woman's knee, and put an arm about her neck.
"Listen", she said, "and I'll tell you all about it, right from the
start-off, when I left here Tuesday evening." And therewith Daisy did
so. By the time she had finished, Jean's arms were about her waist, and
penitence blended with the amazed, generous, unenvying delight that
radiated from the Scotswoman's harsh-lined but kindly-expressioned
face.
"Forgie me, bairnie," she said, as she laid her great palm around the
girl's cheek; "but I--I--why, I juist canna find the words tae say what
I think. I'm fair--fair tongue-tied. Fast married--and to a laird o'
lairds! Ey, ye bonnie wee thing, ye, bide till I buss ye," and the great
arms, tightening about Daisy's waist, hugged her ecstatically. Then Jean
set her free, rose up with vigor, and reached down a bowl, spoon and
plate of crackers.
"Come!" she exclaimed, as she turned out the gas-jet under the broth,
poured the liquid into the bowl, and went to the cupboard for a
dessert-spoon; "if the good leddy's conscious an' no in ane of her bad
spells, we'll tell her the news. A bittie o' gossip like yon's better
than physic or food to a sick wuman.... By the bye, here's a letter cam'
for ye yesterday. Open it an' read it, if ye like, while the broth's
coolin'."
The letter was from Mrs. Lovina Nixon, in answer to Daisy's first letter
home, written under a daughterly impulse during one of Jean's "nights
out", when Daisy was alone in the big Harrison kitchen. In her letter,
the girl had asked for forgiveness and had hoped that "You and Pa are
getting along all right, and that crops are looking good."
Mrs. Lovina's answer was somewhat grim and ominous. "I suppose," she
wrote, "you think yourself mighty smart, taking off like that. I suppose
you think it was kind of respectable, eh, to go away like you done,
alone with a feller. I suppose you reckon your going to have high jinks
in town there while me and your Pa milks all them cows, well you ain't.
Your not of age yet understand, and your pa and me is coming right into
the city to get you, one of these days and fetch you strait home, and if
you don't get one tanning from your pa that youl remember all your days,
my name aint lovina janet nixon, so mind."
"Bad news, bairnie?" Jean enquired; as Daisy, sobered not so much by the
letter as by momentary recollection of her past, stared down at the
floor in a grave, pondering way.
"Oh--no," Daisy folded up the letter and slipped it into the bosom of
her dress, "not exactly. Is the broth cool now, Jean?"
"Ay," said Jean, picking up the bowl and the plate of crackers; "Come
on. The Mistress is lyin' in Sir Thomas' room. I had him move his ugly
carcass out of it, because it's the best-ventilated room in the
hoose--the best o' the worst, like. He didna object, at least naething
to speak of. He kenned fine I'd have taken the besom tae him without
much encouragin'.... Ey, what d'ye think, now, I caught him sayin' tae
her, one time when I came in to red up the room. He was standin' by the
bedside, with his hands in his pockets and his feet spraddled out, in
yon way he has.
"'We-ell, Marth',' he oppens up, in his big healthy blat, 'har yuh
feelin'? Uh?'.
"'Poorly, Tom, very poorly,' says the good leddy--puir soul!--in a
faint-like voice.
"'Thaat's ba-ad,' he says, suckin' his teeth like somebody chirpin' tae
a pair o' horses, 'but anyway, I guess, Marth', it's time you was
restin' under the sod. You've done your share o' this world's toughin'
it. You've aimed the right to rest, if anybody hezz. Ever'thin' wurks
furr th' best. Y'see that, don't yuh, Marth'-girl? Uh?'
"Juist then I cam up and gied him a push from behind. Ey, a bonny push!
'Get oot!' I says, chokin'-like. I was sae blind mad, I could ha'
stranglit yon man, then and there, so I could. Weel, he went!"
The great muscles on Jean's arms were knotted into ribs and ridges like
a man's; her chin was thrust out; her eyes were narrowed into shining
slits. Her whole strong frame seemed to become a banked fire of
indignation, as memory recalled that scene in the sickroom.
The door of Lady Harrison's room was slightly open as the two reached
it. They were barely inside the chamber, when Jean, with an exclamation
thrust the broth and crackers down on a side-table and rushed over to
the bed.
Daisy, following quickly, saw the Scotswoman, after glancing closely at
the half-open eyes and laying her ear to the gaunt sunken chest, hastily
remove the pillows from under Lady Martha Harrison's head, lay the scalp
levelly on the mattress, and press down the eyelids with her fingers.
"Ey, puir, puir leddy," Jean, keeping finger and thumb on the dead
eyelids, turned toward Daisy with two tear-balls bowling down the rugged
field of her face; "she's gone, she's gone. Ey, gone off all her
lone--died as she lived, bairnie--while we're crackin' awa careless-like
down in yon kitchen. Stane deid, an' nigh stark against the layin'-oot."