Chapter XVII

"EH, Robert is that you? Who thought you'd be waiting here? I doubt your patience has been sorely tried, for the train is an hour behind time."

Jean Graham was the speaker, and her words were addressed to a man of similar age to herself, by whom her hand was warmly grasped as she descended from the railway carriage.

"Did ye not think I should be here, Jean?" was his response, and there was just a shade of reproach in the tone. "Have I not been waiting for ye for years, and should I trouble about an hour more or less?"

The last sentence was uttered in a lower voice, and was plainly intended for Jean Graham's ear alone, as also was the meaning look which accompanied it for her sole reading.

Jean laughed, and a heightened colour spread over her comely face as she answered,—

"Well, Robert, I'm glad to see you again after all these years. It has been hard work to get away, and I doubt they'll be wanting me back before I'll be ready to go."

"Nobody can be wanting you back so much as you are wanted here, Jean," was Robert's reply; but he did not wait for an immediate response.

Assisted by the porter, he placed Jean's luggage on the spring cart which was waiting outside, and, having helped her to the front seat, took the reins and drove homeward.

No one at Steynes-Cote—not even Dr. Crawford—suspected that Jean Graham had her love-story. But such was the case, and the sunburnt, tawny-haired, rather rugged-featured young farmer beside her was its hero.

Jean could not remember the time during her early life in Scotland when Robert Hamilton had not been mixed up with it. He and his sisters had gone to the same school with her and her brothers and sisters. When Jean left home to take service in England, the honest blue eyes of this sandy-haired "neebor lad" had followed her departing figure with sad and wistful looks, until it could be discerned no longer. Whenever Jean took holiday, Robert Hamilton's voice was the first to greet her, and the last to say "Farewell, and God be with ye!" when the time came for her to return.

The two had "understood each other" for many a year past, yet Jean had kept on serving the Feredays and Crawfords in succession, and Robert ploughing, sowing, and reaping on his Scotch farm as if there were no engagement between them. Jean well knew, however, that this was not the result of want of true, heart-felt affection on either side. But before Robert could take home a wife, he must act the part of son and husband to his widowed mother, and be both father and brother to the troop of young children who looked to him as the head of the family.

The young farmer was not out of his teens when this burden was laid upon him, but he had shouldered it willingly, worked cheerfully, and earned the grateful love of the younger Hamiltons, who had gone out into the world one by one to do credit to their home training. Now there was only the old mother left, and her great desire was that Robert should bring home the wife for whom he had so long waited.

"Jean must come now, Robert; and your mother will be the happier for knowing that you have a true helpmeet by the old fireside. I shall be near, but the farmhouse needs a younger mistress. Bring Jean home, and may the blessing of God be upon you both!" said Mrs. Hamilton, when she knew Jean Graham was expected at her father's.

Robert lost no time in quoting his mother's words, and urging upon Jean that they had now nothing to wait for but just herself. After his long patience, he was ill-prepared for her answer.

"You must bide a wee bit longer, Rab; I cannot be spared just yet; I did not know ye were ready. You should have told me, and I would have spoken to the mistress."

"And who has the right to say you nay, Jean, if you make up your own mind? You're no bond-slave, to be held against your will."

"It is just a question part of pity, part of duty, that holds me to Steynes-Cote," replied Jean.

And then she gave Robert Hamilton a graphic description of the state of things at Dr. Crawford's.

"It seems, Rab," she continued, "as if it were laid upon me to try and rouse the young mistress to a sense of what she owes to her God, her husband, and her children. Of Him I doubt she has but little serious thought. Not that she speaks lightly of holy things, but they have no reality to her. D'ye mind what I mean?"

Robert assented, and Jean resumed her story.

"Of the doctor she thinks much, but not in the right way altogether. She's proud of him, and thinks him a grand man, clever and wise, and she dresses herself in her best, that she may look fair in his eyes. She meets him with a smile, and she bids him look at her new gown, and gives him welcome with all her heart. But, Rab, she is so much taken up with her bits of finery, and with the thought of looking fair in his eyes, that she does not see that he wants something else besides smiles and winsome ways. They are like the sauces that come in with the good meat—very tasty to go along with it, but not enough to feed and live upon.

"I often see the doctor come in with a weary, far-away look on his face, and I feel that he needs, above all things, to be quiet and to be waited on silently, but with thoughtful care and loving hands. Mrs. Fereday knew in a moment when the old master wanted word-sympathy and when he would fain be let alone."

"Eh, but I shall have a wise woman when I get ye, Jean. Ye've had one mistress for a pattern, and the other to warn ye," said Robert.

Jean, laughed, and replied, "Better not reckon too much; I might follow the wrong one. But, Rab, I hope I shall feel always with ye and for ye, and it is just in that the young mistress comes short towards Master Andrew. I cannot understand it. If I were in her place, I should want to hear about his work, and especially about those whose pains had been relieved by his skill. The young mistress will hear nothing of the kind. When he began once to speak of the way in which a mother's precious life had been saved and given back, in a way, to the longing hearts of her husband and children, the mistress put her hands to her ears and cried,—

"'Don't, Andrew; I cannot bear to hear of those horrid things!'

"The doctor's face was all aglow when he came in, and I doubt not he was thanking God for that He had made him wise-hearted and given him understanding, and blessed the use of his talents to the sick and sorrowful. But when his wife's words fell on his ear, the light died away from his face, and he went straight out of the house without speaking again. She gave him a sore wound, but she never meant it, or even knew what she had done. Then she does not think or reckon how much it costs to keep up Steynes-Cote, and pay all the troop of servants. She gets her will, and she never asks herself where all the money comes from, though she will say to the doctor,—

"'Andrew, what a slave you make of yourself! You ought not to work so hard, for my sake; I see so little of you.'"

"He should tell her," interposed Robert. "He should let her know that it is by this hard work alone that she keeps her house and her servants, and buys all she sets her mind on. Would she not heed his words?"

"No doubt she would, for the doctor is before all the world to her, according to her light. But he has taken the bonnie young lady, and because her father was a lord, and no common man, he has made up his mind that she must flutter in the sunshine like a butterfly, whilst he labours like a bee to store her home with sweets."

Robert Hamilton echoed the sigh with which Jean closed her word-picture. Then, after a brief silence, he asked, "How about the children?"

"The mistress thinks they are just the bonniest bits o' playthings in the world. She looks almost a bairn herself amongst her babies, and when I hear her laugh ringing out above theirs, the music is so sweet that whiles I laugh myself without being able to tell why. Next moment, I wipe away a tear that has come as unbidden as the laugh did, for I know the young mistress leaves the care of those precious living treasures to a woman that is not fit to be trusted with the guiding of a kitten. I warned her as well as I dare before I left, and I bade her take good care of two keys in particular. But I can hardly sleep o' nights for thinking whether the mistress has given heed to my words, or says to herself,—

"'Jean is cross and jealous. Who cares for her old-maidish words and ways?'"

Robert Hamilton listened patiently whilst Jean told her tale. Then he said, "You have done right, Jean, my woman. And if, after all your years of service, your word is not worth heeding, you'd better leave your young mistress to look out for herself. I want ye, Jean, to rule at the farm instead of serving in the great house."

"And I want ye to give me a few more months, Rab, to finish the task that is laid upon me. You have been very patient through all these past years; it is no long time I ask for now."

"You have been patient, Jean, and I have waited because I could not help myself," replied Robert. "Fretting would have hindered work, and if the work had not been done, how could I say to-day, 'Jean, the house is ready for its mistress, and I want my wife as the reward for past years of patience and of labour?' A few months may seem short when compared with them, but to me every day will be as a week now, because there is not the needs be for waiting."

Such pleading was very hard for Jean to withstand. Indeed, her own heart joined in it. Was she not pledged by the most solemn of engagements to this good, true man? Had not the thought of her spurred him on to greater efforts, and made him toil when others had gone to rest, and work on in spite of weariness? Had he not the first claim upon her? Ought she, for the sake of her girl-mistress, to entail further waiting and self-sacrifice on Robert Hamilton?

There were yet others to be considered—the parents from whom she had been parted, except at rare intervals, during nearly twenty years. Had not they openly expressed their joy at the thought that Jean would for the future be very near them, and that as years increased she would always be within call and ready to minister to their wants?

At last Jean said, "I must go back to Steynes-Cote and give reasonable warning."

To this Robert answered gravely, "If you give more than due notice, Jean, I shall begin to fancy that I am losing grip of you altogether."

The speaker's look and tone expressed dissatisfaction,—almost doubt,—and troubled Jean, though she answered cheerily,—

"No fear of that, Rab. I'm owre old to change; but you would think badly of me if I were not to consider those I have served so long."

"I shall think you are putting them before me if you give them more than the lawful month's notice," persisted Robert.

After this speech, he was strangely silent, and then he went away sooner than usual, after a less kindly and affectionate leave-taking.

Poor Jean! She was not a very demonstrative woman, but she was true to the core, and there was in her a wealth of tenderness, despite her business-like, self-contained manner.

Through so many years of absence, she had kept her love-story to herself, even while longing for sympathy. But never for one moment had she varied in her whole-hearted affection for Robert Hamilton. She never believed it possible that he could have any doubt of this, or that he could be less true than herself. Yet Robert's abrupt departure wounded her sorely, and his dogged words seemed still to sound like a threat in her sensitive ears. His manner to-night had been to Jean a new and sorrowful experience.

Anxiety for the safety of the little ones at Steynes-Cote had of late interrupted her rest and kept her on the alert at times. But it was not often Jean's personal concerns robbed her of the nightly sleep she so well earned by her conscientious daily work. On this night, however, Jean's heart was too full and her mind too busy to allow of much rest. First she grieved over Robert's hardness of manner, then began to make excuses for it.

"Poor Rab! He can only see what a long wait he has had already. When he has made all smooth by his patient work, it must try him sorely for me to put hindrances in the way. How can he enter into what I feel for the master and mistress that are strangers to him? How can he understand that I shall be happier all my after-life, if I can only think that the mother is awake to her children's needs, and is watching over them herself, instead of trusting them to such unsafe hands?"

No doubt Robert had planned to give her a glad surprise, by hiding the fact that his preparatory work was now done, and his home ready for Jean. But he had plainly forgotten all other claims upon her, in thinking of his own.

How could he expect her to blurt out all at once the story that had been so long kept secret, and say, "I must leave on the shortest possible notice"? Would not Dr. and Mrs. Crawford feel that she had treated them very ill?

Jean could not blame Robert for demanding the wife so long promised, so patiently waited for. He had right on his side, and yet, in thinking matters over, Jean could not help saying, "And so have I."

Agitated by contending thoughts and interests, she passed a sleepless night, and came down early, a weary-eyed, sad-faced woman, very unlike the Jean Graham whom Robert Hamilton met at the station a few days before.

Probably his night had also been one of unrest, for he presented himself at the door before Jean's parents were down-stairs.

"Jean," said he, "I want a word with ye. I doubt I troubled ye last night, and I troubled myself no less. I have come to tell you so. I did not mean to grieve ye, Jean," he pleaded. And he looked wistfully at her, as he read on her honest face unmistakable traces of suffering.

"I was troubled, Rab," she replied, "for you hardly seemed like yourself. Best forget what passed altogether, as one forgets an ill dream." And with a smile, Jean extended her hand to meet that which Robert was holding towards her.

"If your dreams were as few as mine were, you'll have none to forget for the last night," said Robert, as their hands met with a hearty clasp. "I could not sleep for thinking of my Jean's face that spoke, though her tongue was still when I left her."

Jean's looks were eloquent enough now.

Robert's words made amends for all, and he saw that he was forgiven.

"And now, Jean, my woman," said he, "I want ye to take away from me, once and for all, the temptation to part as we did last night. Why need ye go back to Steynes-Cote to serve, when you can be mistress here? Write and tell Mrs. Crawford that you want no more wages, and ask for your clothes and all belonging to ye to be sent. Let her know that you have been promised to me since we were boy and girl together. She cannot say you ought to go back just to serve the month after all these years."

"If I had told them, Rab, it would have been easy, but I never said a word; and if I were to leave them in this sudden way, they would have a right to think I had behaved ill to them. I must come to you with a clear conscience, Rab, and to do this I must first serve out my time at Steynes-Cote. Bid me go, and you will make me very happy, and I will make up to you through all my life for this little extra patience."

But Robert did not say, "Go, Jean!"

He turned away and left her without a word.

And the glad look died away again, and the unwonted tears streamed like rain down Jean Graham's cheeks as she gazed on the retreating figure of her lover, who deigned no backward glance, and who, having come to heal the wounded heart, now left it sorer still.