The Twa Miss Dawsons. Margaret M. Robertson
sister is very fond of him, and very good to him, he says. And he must be a heavy handful whiles,” said Jean gravely.
“In what way?” asked her father.
“Oh! just having him on her mind to keep sight of, and amuse, and keep out of mischief, as he says. Just fancy the weariness of it?”
“You seem to have gathered a good deal from him, as well as your sister,” said Mr. Dawson, not well pleased. “And you find him a heavy handfu’, do you? I have thought whiles that you get on very well with him.”
“Oh, yes, I get on very well with him! I’m not responsible for him, ye ken, and that makes all the difference.”
“Marion Petrie says that Jean keeps him very much to herself, and Jamie looks as if he thought so, too, sometimes,” said May laughing.
“That is one of your ‘gatherings,’ May, my dear,” said her sister.
“Well, you must make your best of the visitor when she comes,” said Mr. Dawson as he went out.
And it was very easy to make the best of Mrs. Eastwood. She was amiable and agreeable, and if she looked down on any one, it did not appear. She did not mingle much with the younger portion of the company, but she amused herself by observing all that was going on, and talked pleasantly with Miss Jean, and afterwards with Mr. Dawson, about various things, but chiefly about her brother, whom she evidently loved dearly, and who as evidently caused her anxiety, though she had no thought of letting this appear.
Miss Jean found her soft flowing talk pleasant to listen to, and all the more that she did not need very often to reply. Mr. Dawson was charmed with her, and it was not, as a general thing, his way to be charmed with strangers. But she was not altogether a stranger. Her husband’s name—Eastwood, the London banker—had long been familiar to Mr. Dawson. He knew him to be a “responsible” man, and that was more than could be said of all the fine English folk, who found it convenient to pass a part of the summer or autumn at Blackford House.
Mrs. Eastwood herself was of high family, being the granddaughter, or at least the grand-niece, of a living earl, and though Mr. Dawson would doubtless have scorned the imputation, it is possible that he found all the more pleasure in entertaining her because of that Mr. Eastwood was not of high family. He was very rich however, and they got on together, pretty well, May “gathered” from Captain Harefield’s conversation; that is, they never quarrelled, and were content to spare each other to enjoy the society of other people for a good part of the year.
But Mrs. Eastwood made much of her husband when speaking of him to Mr. Dawson, and of her brother also. Of the brother, she had much to say, and Mr. Dawson listened with great interest to it all, as Miss Jean could not fail to see.
And in the mean time the young people amused themselves in the garden and in the wood, and Captain Harefield seemed to be at no loss for amusement among them. Jean certainly did not keep him to herself to-day, as Mr. Dawson noticed; but then Jean was hostess, and had to occupy herself with the duties of her position, and with the party generally. It passed off very well, all things considered, and the children’s party was likely to be the same thing over again, with the children added.
The little Corbetts, who were the reason, or the excuse, of the prospective gayeties, had come from their home in an English manufacturing town, in order that the sea breezes of Portie might put strength in their limbs and colour in their wan cheeks; and they had come at the special invitation of Mr. Dawson. Their father, the son of the Portie parish minister of the time, had been his chief friend in the days of his youth, and they had never forgotten one another, though they had not for a long time been in frequent correspondence. During one of Mr. Dawson’s infrequent visits to Liverpool, they had met by chance, and had renewed acquaintance to the pleasure of both, and Mr. Dawson allowed himself to be persuaded to go and pass a few days with his friend.
Mr. Corbett had not been a very successful man in the way of making money, and he had a large family, few of them able to do much for themselves. But they were cheerful, hopeful people, and made the best of things. There had been illness among them recently, which had left the younger children white and thin, and not likely to mend during the summer heat in a close city street; and when Mr. Dawson asked as many of them as liked to spend a month or two among the sea breezes of Portie, the invitation was accepted gratefully. But it was doubtful whether, for economic reasons, they could have availed themselves of it, if Mr. Dawson had not taken matters into his own hand, and insisted on taking some of them home at once.
So the two youngest, Polly and Dick, with an elder sister of fifteen to be responsible for their well-being and well-doing, were carried off to Saughleas, and presented unannounced to the startled, but well pleased, household. Their coming gave interest, and occupation as well, to every one, for “Mr. Dawson had given mamma no time for preparation,” as the pretty, anxious elder sister was fain to explain when she asked Miss Dawson’s advice and assistance in the matter of shoes and stockings, and other things suitable for the perfect enjoyment of the rocks and sands of Portie. Miss Dawson made all that easy, taking the equipment of the children, and the elder sister as well, into her own hands.
And the puny city children enjoyed the sands and the sea, the running and clambering, and the free out-of-doors life, as much as their father had done in his boyish days; and their own mother would hardly have recognised their round brown faces before the first month was over.
As to their needing entertainment in the way of children’s parties, that was not likely. But for the sake of their father and grandfather they had been invited to many houses in Portie, and it was but right that they should have a chance to invite their young friends in return. And so the party was decided on, and was much enjoyed, and so might be dismissed with no more words about it, except for a circumstance or two which attended it.
Mrs. Eastwood was there again, but not by invitation. She had not been aware that there was to be such gay doings at Saughleas, she said, when she came into the garden, and she stayed a while at Miss Jean’s request, to enjoy the sight of so many happy bairns. But she was not bright and beaming and bent on pleasing every one, as she had been the first time she was at Saughleas.
To tell the truth, she was anxious and unhappy, at a loss what to do, or whether she should do any thing, or just let events take their own course. It was her brother and his affairs that occupied her thoughts. She had been so long accustomed to think for him, and advise him, he had come to her so constantly for help in the various difficulties into which he had fallen during his life, and she had been so successful in helping him, and so happy in doing so, that she could not—though she sometimes tried—divest herself of a feeling of personal responsibility for his well-being. And now that he seemed to be at a turning point in his life, she felt all the anxiety of one who had a decision of importance to make, with no one at hand on whose judgment she could rely for guidance.
It added to her unhappiness, that she could not quite free herself from blame in regard to the matter to be decided. She need not have made herself unhappy about her own course. Nothing that she had done or left undone, had much to do with the intentions of which her brother had informed her that morning. She had been conscious of a feeling of relief for herself at the chance of his finding the means of amusing himself innocently in the country. That was the uttermost of her sin towards him. But his frequent visits to Saughleas, and his loiterings in Portie, would have been none the less frequent had he believed that his sister missed and mourned every hour of his absence.
And her present anxiety as to his next step was just as vain. She could neither help nor hinder it, and, whatever might be the result, neither praise nor blame could justly fall to her because of it. But she did not see it so, and so she had come to Saughleas with many vague thoughts as to what it might be wise to do, but with a firm determination as to one thing that was to be plainly said before she went away again.
Her first thought when she saw the pleasant confusion that the children were making on the lawn and in the gardens was, that nothing could be said to-day. But by and by, when children and young people, her brother among the rest, went away to amuse themselves with games in the field beyond the wood, the way to speak was opened to her,