Part 33 (1/2)

Mrs Calderwood looked at her a moment as though she did not understand what she was saying. Then she laughed and kissed her.

”Nonsense! dear. You are a sensible la.s.sie and discreet. I would be sorry to disappoint Miss Jean, though she has friends enough in Portie one would think. But it is the first favour she has ever asked of me, and many a one she has done me.”

”But, mother, I think this is a favour to us--to me at least. Oh! it seems too good to be true.”

”Well, we will think about it.”

”And, mother, if I should go, I would like--wouldn't you? rather to go with Mr Dawson than with James Petrie.”

Her mother's face clouded again.

”What ails you at young Mr Petrie?”

Marion shrugged her shoulders.

”Oh! nothing. Only I like Mr Dawson better--better than I could have believed possible. He has been very good to me. I haven't told you yet. Mother, I think he must have grown a better man since George came home.”

Her mother said nothing. She did not think well of Mr Dawson. She did not wish to think well of him. When she had heard from Marion that he had come to his daughter's house, her first impulse was to recall her at once. The impossibility of leaving her old friend, or of permitting Marion to travel alone, prevented her from acting on her first impulse, and when she had time to consider the matter, she saw that it would be better for her to remain. It was not likely that Mr Dawson would see much of her, and whatever he might feel, he would not do otherwise than treat politely his daughter's guest.

That he should ”begood to her,” that he should put himself about, as she knew he must have done, to give her pleasure surprised her, but it did not please her. She had forgiven him, she told herself. At least she bore him no ill-will for the share he and his had had in the trouble of her life, but she wished to have nothing at all to do with him, either as friend or foe.

But Miss Jean's friends.h.i.+p was quite apart from all this. It had been a refuge to her in times of trouble long before she lost her Elsie, and this invitation was but another proof of her friends.h.i.+p, and she would let her daughter go.

As for her escort--Mrs Calderwood was as averse to accepting James Petrie as such, as her daughter was, though from a different reason.

But she was equally averse to any appearance of presuming on the kindness of Mr Dawson. Fortunately the matter was taken out of her hands.

Mrs Manners came the next day empowered to plead that Miss Jean's invitation should be accepted, and when she found that this was not necessary, she found courage to propose that instead of waiting for any one, Marion should hasten her preparations and go on at once with her father.

Trouble! What possible trouble could it be for her father to sit in the same railway carriage with the child? As for Jamie Petrie--it was easy seen what he was after. But it would be quite too great a grace to grant him at this early stage of--of his plans and projects. Oh! yes.

Of course it was all nonsense, but then--

But the nonsense helped to bring Mrs Calderwood to consent that Marion should go at once. And so it was arranged.

It would have pleased Mr Dawson to take Marion with him to Saughleas, but this she modestly but firmly declined, because her mother expected her to go at once to Miss Jean's house by the sea, and there she was kindly welcomed.

It was like getting home again, she said. The sound of the sea soothed her to sleep, and it woke her in the morning with a voice as familiar as if she had never been away. She was out, and away over the sands to the Tangle Stanes, and had renewed acquaintance with half the bairns in Portie, before Miss Jean was ready for her breakfast.

The bairns had all grown big, and the streets and lanes, the houses and shops, had all grown narrow and small, she thought. But the sea had not changed, nor the sands, nor the far-away hills, nor the sky--which was, oh! so different from the sky in London. Marion had not changed much, her friends thought. Some of them said she was bigger and bonnier, but she was blithe and friendly and ”a'e fauld” still--and London hadna spoiled her as it might very easily have done. At any rate she meant to enjoy every hour of her stay, and that was the way she began.

She did not miss Jean either, for George had been called away on business for a few days and when he returned they were to set out on their travels. During these few days Marion saw much of her friend.

Jean was graver than she used to be, Marion thought; but she was kind and friendly, and could be merry too, on occasion. They had much to say to one another, and they spent hours together in the old familiar places, in the wood and on the rocks by the sea, and heard one another's ”secrets,” which were only secrets in the sense that neither of them would have been likely to tell them to any one else.

Marion told her friend all that she had been seeing and doing and reading, and some things that she had been hoping, since she went away, and Jean did little more. She told what her brother was doing and the help she tried to give him, and she told of the life that seemed to be opening before them.

Not such a life as they used to plan and dream about for themselves, when they were young; a quiet, uneventful, busy-life, just like the lives of other people. Judging from the look on Jean's face it did not seem a very joyful life to look forward to. Marion regarded her friend with wistful eyes.

”No. It will never be that, I am sure--just like the lives of other people, I mean.”

”And why not? Well, perhaps not altogether. It will be an easier life than the lives of most people, I suppose. It will not just be a struggle for bread, as it is for so many. And we can do something for others who need help, and we need not be tied to one place every day of the year, as most folk are. And by and by we will be 'looked up to,'

and our advice will be asked, and folk will say of us, as they say of my father, that 'they are much respeckit in the countryside.' And by that time I shall be 'auld Miss Jean,' and near done with it all. But it is a long look till then.”

”But it may be all quite different from that. Many a thing may happen to change it all.”