Part 27 (2/2)
CHAPTER XIV
VANE SAILS NORTH
On the evening of Vane's departure he walked out of Nairn's room just as dusk was falling. His host was with him, and when they entered an adjacent room the elder man's face relaxed into a smile as he saw Jessy Horsfield talking to his wife. Vane stopped a few minutes to speak to them, and it was Jessy who gave the signal for the group to break up.
”I must go,” she said to Mrs. Nairn. ”I've already stayed longer than I intended. I'll let you have those patterns back in a day or two.”
”Mair patterns!” Nairn exclaimed with dry amus.e.m.e.nt. ”It's the second lot this week! Ye're surely industrious, Jessy. Women”--he addressed Vane--”have curious notions of economy. They will spend a month knitting a thing to give to somebody who does no want it, when they could buy it for half a dollar, done better by machinery. I'm no saying, however, that it does no keep them out of mischief.”
Jessy laughed.
”I don't think many of us are industrious in that way now. After all, isn't it a pity that so many of the beautiful old handicrafts are dying out? No loom, for instance, could turn out some of the things your wife makes. They're matchless.”
”She has an aumrie--ye can translate it bureaufull of them. It's no longer customary to scatter them over the house. If ye mean to copy the lot, ye have a task that will take ye most a lifetime.”
Mrs. Nairn's smile was half a sigh.
”There were no books and no many amus.e.m.e.nts when I was young. We sat through the long winter forenights, counting st.i.tches, in the old gray house at Burnfoot, under the Scottish moors. That, my dear, was thirty years ago.”
She shook hands with Vane as he left the house with Jessy, and standing on the stoop she watched them cross the lawn.
”I'm thinking ye'll no see so much of Jessy for the next few weeks,”
Nairn remarked dryly. ”Has she shown ye any of yon knickknacks when she has finished them?”
His wife shook her head at him reproachfully.
”Alic,” she admonished, ”ye're now and then hasty in jumping at conclusions.”
”Maybe. I'm no infallible, but the fault ye mention is no common in the land where we were born. I'm no denying that Jessy has enterprise, but how far it will carry her in this case is mair than I can tell.”
He smiled as he recalled a scene at the station some time ago, and Mrs.
Nairn looked up at him.
”What is amusing you, Alic?”
”It was just a bit idea no worth the mentioning. I think it would no count.” He paused, and added with an air of reflection: ”A young man's heart is whiles inconstant and susceptible.”
Mrs. Nairn, ignoring the last remark, went into the house. In the meanwhile Jessy and Vane walked down the road, until they stopped at a gate. Jessy held out her hand.
”I'm glad I met you to-night,” she said. ”You will allow me to wish you every success?”
There was a softness in her voice which Vane wholly failed to notice, though he was aware that she was pretty and artistically dressed. This was possibly why she made him think of Evelyn.
”Thank you,” he replied. ”It's nice to feel that one has the sympathy of one's friends.”
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