The Twa Miss Dawsons Part 10

"I beg your pardon. I'm very grieved," repeated she.

Mrs Eastwood whispered to Miss Jean what a pretty picture the child made, but Miss Jean was thinking of other things.

"It was Sandy," continued the little pleader. "He was taking a' wee David's sweetees, and I couldna bide that, ye ken, and I just--just tried to hinder him; an' he ran awa', and me after him. And he ran in beneath the tree, but he wouldna have gone, if I hadna been after him, and so--"

"She licket me, and she tried to rug my lugs," (pull my ears), said a voice in the distance.

The change in the girl's face was wonderful to see as she turned to the speaker. A sudden colour rose to her cheeks, and her grey eyes flashed scorn and anger.

"If I only had been able!" said she, and then she turned to Mr Dawson again.

"I'm very grieved," repeated she.

"It canna be helpit now, Maysie," said Miss Jean. "Never heed. Run awa' with the lave o' the bairns."

For Miss Jean knew that it was not the apples nor their destruction that had brought that look to her brother's face.

"Are ye angry with me, sir? And winna ye forgive me?" said Maysie, the sweet wistfulness coming back to her eyes. "I'm very grieved."

"It canna be helpit. Never heed," said Mr Dawson, repeating his sister's words. "I dinna think I mind your name," added he, not meaning to say it, but making a great effort to recover himself.

"I'm Marion Calderwood," said she, a sudden brightness, followed by a cloud as sudden, pa.s.sing over her face. She lifted beseeching eyes to his face, and then she turned to Miss Jean.

"Run awa', la.s.sie, with the lave o' the bairns," said Miss Jean.

"Maybe I should go hame?"

"Hoot, la.s.sie! Never heed. Only run away with the lave."

Quite unconscious that he owed an apology to Mrs Eastwood for his abrupt departure, Mr Dawson turned and strode off in another direction.

"They must be precious apples," said Mrs Eastwood, looking after him with surprise not unmingled with disgust.

"It's an old trouble," said Miss Jean sorrowfully. "He'll hear none o'

her fine words the night," she added to herself, conscious, amid her trouble, of some satisfaction that it should be so.

No, Mr Dawson was not likely to listen patiently to words of any kind that night. The very first look from the child's eyes smote his heart with a pang in which there was regret, as well as anger and pain. For a sudden remembrance of eyes as sweet, and with the same look of wistful appeal in them came back to him--the eyes of bonny Elsie Calderwood, who had come between him and his son.

Almost the last words which his son had spoken to him, the very last such as a son should speak to his father, had been spoken while those wistful eyes entreated him. It had been a moment of great bitterness, and as he pa.s.sed down the lane that led to the fields, and then to the sea, eager to get beyond the sound of the gay voices ringing from garden and wood, the old bitterness returned, and with it came the added misery of the vain wish that he had yielded his own will that day--a longing unspeakable for all that he had lost.

His boy--the only son of his mother who had been so dear, had he lost him forever? Would he never return? Could he be dead? Should he never see his face or hear his voice again?

He had a bitter hour or two, this man, whom even his sister, who knew him best and loved him best, called hard in her secret thoughts. And the bitterness did not pa.s.s with the hour, nor the pain. Silence reigned in the house before he came home that night, and in the morning something of the old gloom seemed to have fallen upon him.

Captain Harefield did go home with his sister; at least he left Blackford House with her, and that without returning after the night of the children's party to say "Good-bye" to his friends at Saughleas. May remarked upon this with a little indignation, and Mr Dawson said it was not like the young man not to do what was polite and kind, and he also wondered at the omission of the visit. Jean said nothing; at least she said nothing to them. To her aunt she acknowledged that she had known of his intended departure, and that she had also known when he bade her good-bye that night, that she was not likely to see him again. But even to her aunt she did not acknowledge that he would have stayed longer if she had bidden him, or that even now a word from her would bring him back again.

Out of the unfortunate incident of the broken apple-tree, there rose a little talk between "the two Jeans." Miss Jean had for a long time had something on her mind to say to her niece, but it was the younger Jean who spoke first.

"Aunt, what is this they are saying about my father's anger at Marion Calderwood?"

"My dear, he wasna angry!"

"Did you see it all, auntie? Because Marion went home greeting, the other bairns say. Of course it was a pity about the tree, but it wasna Marion who broke it, and it wasna like my father to show anger to a guest, even to a bairn."

"My dear, he showed no anger."

"But, auntie, there must have been something; for I met Mrs Calderwood in the High-street this morning, and she went red and then white, and was stiff and distant, as she used to be when we first came home. She had grown quite friendly of late, and to-day she would have pa.s.sed me without speaking. It must have been because of Marion."

"It might have been, but I dinna think it. Mrs Calderwood is a proud woman, Jean, my dear,--and--"

"Well?"

"Weel, ye have been consorting with fine folk lately, and maybe--"

"Auntie Jean! Dinna say more, for that is not your real thought; and that is a terrible thing to say of you."

"My dear, it is my real thought, as far as it goes. I ha'e little doubt that was present in Mrs Calderwood's mind when she met you in the High-street--with other things."

"We'll take the other things first then," said Jean, the angry colour rising in her cheeks. "You must think your friend but a poor creature, or she must think it of us."

It was the first time in all the girl's life, that her eyes with an angry light in them had rested fully on her aunt's face. Her aunt did not resent it, or notice it, except by a gentle movement of her head from side to side, and the shadow of a smile pa.s.sed over her face. She looked grave enough as she answered, however.

"I am far from thinking her a poor creature, whatever she may think of us. And, Jean, my dear, I think ye maun ken something of the other things, though ye never heard them from me."

Jean's look grew soft and sad, and she came and leaned on her aunt's chair.

"Do you mean about bonny Elsie, and--our Geordie? Was it because of Elsie that Geordie went--and lost himself? Tell me about it."

"I think ye maun ken all that I could tell you--or mostly all."

"I only ken--I mean I used to think that they--cared for one another--oh long ago, before my mother died. And since we came home, I have heard a word dropped now and then, by different folk--Marion Petrie, and her mother; and once Tibbie Cairnie said something about my father's cursed pride, and his fine plans that would come to nothing. But it wasna till afterwards that I knew that it was Geordie she was thinking about Auntie Jean, I have had my thoughts, but I ken little. Was my father angry?

But he must have been sorry for George when poor Elsie died. And was it because of Elsie that my brother went away?"

It was not an easy story to tell, and Miss Jean put it in as few words as possible, having her own reasons for telling it to Jean. She dwelt less upon her father's anger at his son's folly, than upon the heartbreak that his loss had brought him. But she made it clear that "poor bonny Elsie" was the cause of their estrangement, and that it would have been the same had Elsie lived and had George carried out his determination to marry her against his father's will.

"If the poor foolish lad had only waited and had patience in the mean time, much sorrow might have been spared to all concerned. Your father might have given in--though I dinna think it; or as they were little more than bairns, they might have forgotten ane anither--though I dinna think that either. But if George had won to man's estate, and had been doing a man's work and getting a man's wages, he would have had a better right to take his own way, and your father _might_ have given in then.

At least he must have been silent, and let the lad go his ain gait. I whiles weary myself thinking how it might have been."

Jean sat without a word, but with a face that changed many times from white to red and from red to white as she listened; and when her aunt paused, and took up the work which in her earnestness she had allowed to fall on her lap, she sat silent still, quite unconscious of the uneasy glances that fell on her from time to time.

"It has made an old man of your father," added Miss Jean in a little.

"Poor father! and poor Geordie! Ay, and poor Elsie! and nothing can change it now."

Jean rose from the stool on which she had been sitting at her aunt's feet, and walked restlessly about the room. By and by, she came and stood behind her aunt's chair, leaning upon it.

"Aunt--there is something I would like to tell you. I wonder if I ought?"

"Ye maun judge, my dear."