Jan Vedder's Wife. Barr Amelia E.
varied only by pitiful defenses of her own conduct: “My house was ever clean and comfortable! No man’s table was better served! I was never idle! I wasted nothing! I never was angry! And yet I am robbed, and betrayed, and deserted! There never was so miserable a woman – so unjustly miserable!” etc.
“Alas! my child,” said Thora, one day, “did you then expect to drink of the well of happiness before death? This is the great saying which we all forget: There– not here —there the wicked cease from troubling; there the weary are at rest. There God has promised to wipe away all tears, but not here, Margaret, not here.”
CHAPTER V.
SHIPWRECK
“A man I am, crossed with adversity.”
“There is some soul of goodness in things evil;
Would men observingly distill it out.”
No man set more nakedly side by side the clay and spirit of his double nature than Jan Vedder. No man wished so much and willed so little. Long before he returned from his first voyage, he became sorry for the deception he had practiced upon his wife, and determined to acknowledge to her his fault, as far as he saw it to be a fault. He was so little fond of money, that it was impossible for him to understand the full extent of Margaret’s distress; but he knew, at least, that she would be deeply grieved, and he was quite willing to promise her, that as soon as The Solan was clear of debt, he would begin to repay her the money she prized so much.
Her first voyage was highly successful, and he was, as usual, sanguine beyond all reasonable probabilities; quite sure, indeed, that Tulloch and Margaret could both be easily paid off in two years. Surely two years was a very short time for a wife to trust her husband with £600. Arguing, then, from his own good intentions, and his own hopes and calculations, he had persuaded himself before he reached Lerwick again that the forced loan was really nothing to make any fuss about, that it would doubtless be a very excellent thing, and that Margaret would be sure to see it as he did.
The Solan touched Lerwick in the afternoon. Jan sent a message to Tulloch, and hastened to his home. Even at a distance the lonely air of the place struck him unpleasantly. There was no smoke from the chimneys, the windows were all closed. At first he thought “Margaret is gone for a day’s visit somewhere – it is unlucky then.” But as he reached the closed gate other changes made themselves apparent. His Newfoundland dog, that had always known his step afar off, and came bounding to meet him, did not answer his whistle. Though he called Brenda, his pet seal, repeatedly, she came not; she, that had always met him with an almost human affection. He perceived before his feet touched the threshold how it was: Margaret had gone to her father’s, or the animals and poultry would have been in the yard.
His first impulse was to follow her there and bring her home, and he felt in his pocket for the golden chain and locket he had brought her as a peace-offering. Then he reflected that by the time he could reach Peter’s house it would be the tea-hour, and he did not intend to discuss the differences between Margaret and himself in Peter’s presence. Thora’s good influence he could count upon; but he knew it would be useless either to reason with or propitiate Peter. For fully five minutes he stood at his bolted door wondering what to do. He felt his position a cruel one; just home from a prosperous voyage, and no one to say a kind word. Yes, he could go to Torr’s; he would find a welcome there. But the idea of the noisy room and inquisitive men was disagreeable to him. Snorro he could not see for some hours. He determined at last that the quiet of his own lonely home was the best place in which to consider this new phase of affairs between him and his wife, and while doing so he could make a cup of tea, and wash and refresh himself before the interview.
He unfastened the kitchen shutter and leaped in. Then the sense of his utter desolation smote him. Mechanically he walked through the despoiled, dusty, melancholy rooms. Not a stool left on which he could sit down. He laughed aloud – that wretched laugh of reckless sorrow, that is far more pitiful than weeping. Then he went to Torr’s. People had seen him on the way to his home, and no one had been kind enough to prevent his taking the useless, wretched journey. He felt deeply wounded and indignant. There were not half a dozen men or women in Lerwick whose position in regard to Jan would have excused their interference, but of that he did not think. Every man and woman knew his shame and wrong. Some one might have warned him. Torr shook his head sympathetically at Jan’s complaints, and gave him plenty of liquor, and in an hour he had forgotten his grief in a drunken stupor.
The next morning he went to Peter’s house to see his wife. Peter knew of his arrival, and he had informed himself of all that had happened in Torr’s room. Jan had, of course, spoken hastily and passionately, and had drunk deeply, and none of his faults had been kept from Margaret. She had expected him to come at once for her, to be in a passion probably, and to say some hard things, but she also had certainly thought he would say them to her, and not to strangers. Hour after hour she watched, sick with longing and fear and anger, hour after hour, until Peter came in, stern and dour, and said:
“Get thee to thy bed, Margaret. Jan Vedder has said words of thee this night that are not to be forgiven, and he is now fathoms deep in Torr’s liquor. See thou speak not with him – good nor bad,” and Peter struck the table so angrily, that both women were frightened into a silence, which he took for consent.
So when Jan asked to see his wife, Thora stood in the door, and in her sad, still way told him that Peter had left strict orders against his entering the house.
“But thou, mother, wilt ask Margaret to come out here and speak to me? Yes, thou wilt do that,” and he eagerly pressed in Thora’s hand the little present he had brought. “Give her this, and tell her I wait here for her.”
After ten minutes’ delay, Thora returned and gave him the trinket back. Margaret wanted her £600 and not a gold locket, and Jan had not even sent her a message about it. His return had brought back the memory of her loss in all its first vividness. She had had a dim hope that Jan would bring her money with him, that he had only taken it to frighten her; to lose this hope was to live over again her first keen sorrow. In this mood it was easy for her to say that she would not see him, or speak to him, or accept his gift; let him give her back her £600, that was the whole burden of her answer.
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