Part 44 (1/2)

”And besides you were an independent woman, with a life and work of your own, and content.”

”Jean, my dear,” said her aunt, laying down her work and folding her hands on her lap, as was her way when she had something serious to say, ”unless ye are keeping something in your heart that ye have never told to me, and there be a reason for it, I would hardly say that you are looking at things with your usual sense and cheerfulness. Do you think that your father has less need o' you now than he has ay had? And do you think it is because o' you that George is so set on taking his wife to the High-street? I see no great change that has come to you or your work, and though it is like giving up your brother in a sense, yet you are glad to do it. What has happened to you, my dear? Would it ease your heart to tell it to me?”

Jean had changed colour many times while her aunt was speaking, and now she sat with her eyes turned away to the sea, as if she were considering whether it would be well to speak. Miss Jean kept silence. She needed no words to tell her the girl's trouble. She had guessed the cause of the weariness and restlessness that Jean could not hide from her, though she could keep a cheerful face before the rest of her world. But she thought it possible that after so long a silence it might do her heart good to speak, if it were only a word, and so she waited silently. But on the whole she was not sorry when Jean rose and took her hat in her hand to go.

”No, Auntie Jean, I have nothing to tell you, positively nothing. I am 'ower weel off,' as Tibbie Cairnie says. That is what ails me, I dare say.”

”You'll ha'e May and her bairns through the summer, and plenty to do, and there is nothing better than that to put away--”

”Discontent,” said Jean, as her aunt hesitated for a word. ”My dear, ye should ha'e gone with your father and George. It would ha'e done you good.”

”Well, perhaps it might. But it is too late now. Did I tell you that May wrote that Sir Percy Harefield was at the wedding?”

”No, ye didna tell me.”

”May thinks he asked my father to invite him, and my father seems to be as much taken up with him as ever. He is coming north again, she says.”

”And has his new tide changed him any, and his new possessions, does your sister say?”

”He has grown fat--more portly, May calls it,” said Jean laughing. ”She says he is going to Parliament.”

”He'll do little ill there, it's likely.”

”And as little good, ye think, auntie. It will keep him out of mischief, as he used to say. And after all, I dare say he will do as well as most of them. He is a gentleman anyway, and that is ay something.”

And then she went away, and while Miss Jean mused on the cause of Jean's discontent, she could not forget what she called the Englishman's constancy, and she heartily wished that something might happen to keep him from coming north for a while.

”And I canna help thinking that if Jean had gone to her brother's marriage, something might have happened to set her heart at rest.”

But that was not Jean's thought. She had not said until the last moment that she was not going, partly because she wished to avoid discussion, and partly because of something else. The many good reasons by which she had succeeded in convincing her father that it was best for her to stay at home, were none of them the reason why she did not go. That could be told to no one. It was only with pain and something like a sense of shame--though she told herself angrily that there was no cause for shame--that she acknowledged to herself the reason.

”I care for him still, though he has forgotten me. I ay cared for him.

And he loved me once, I know well. But if he loved me still, he would come and tell me. I could not go and meet him now--and his mother's eyes would be on me--and yet, oh! how I long to see his face after all these years!”

After all these years she might well say. For since May's marriage day, when her heart fell low as Marion told her that her brother had gone away, she had never seen him. He had come north once with George when she was away from home, and he had been in England more than once while she was visiting his sister, but he had never come to see her.

It had hurt her, but she had comforted herself, saying it was because of her father or perhaps also because of his own mother that he did not come. But since Marion was coming home to them, that could be no reason now if he cared, and almost up to the last moment she had waited, hoping that he might come. And then she told herself it was impossible that she should go to meet him, caring for him still.

”And the best thing I can do now is to put it all out of my mind forever.”

If she only could have done so, and she did her best to try. May came home with her father; and she and her pretty boys and her baby daughter were with them all the summer. And by and by George brought home his wife, and it was a gay and busy time with them all.

May, who saw most things that were pa.s.sing, noticed that in some ways her sister was different from what she used to be. She was not the leader in all the gay doings, but left the young visitors at the house to amuse themselves in their own way. She was intent on household matters, as was right, and she took more time to herself in the quiet of her own room than she used to do. But she was merry enough with the children, and indeed gave much of her leisure to them, going about in the house and the garden with baby Mary in her arms, and the little brothers following in their train for many a pleasant hour.

George brought his wife home to the High-street. Even Mr Dawson after a while acknowledged that they had been wise to secure for themselves the quiet of a house of their own. Not that they began in these first days by living to themselves. There was enough to do. There were gay doings in many homes in honour of the bride, and the honour intended was generally accepted none the less gratefully or gracefully, that the gay doings could have been happily dispensed with by them both.

They had pleasures and occupations of another kind also, for Marion was too well-known to the poor folk of Portie to make her coming among them as young Mrs Dawson an intrusion or a trouble. So the young husband and wife went in and out together, ”the very sicht o' them,” as even Mrs Cairnie owned, ”doing a body gude as they pa.s.sed.”

And on the comings and goings of these happy young people, on the honour paid them, on their kindly words and deeds, and heartsome ways with rich and poor, with old friends and new, Mr Dawson looked and pondered with a constant, silent delight which few besides the two Jeans saw or suspected. Even they could not but wonder sometimes at the unceasing interest he found in them and their doings at home and abroad.

He wondered at it himself sometimes. It was like a new sweet spring of life to him to see them, and to hear about them, and to know that all things went well with them; and though few out of his own household could have seen any change in him, it was clear in many ways to those who saw him in his own house day by day.