Jan Vedder's Wife - Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (historical books to read txt) 📗

she fully determined to stand by her son. It might be a pleasure for her to see Jan, and even to be reconciled to him, but she would not sacrifice her child's inheritance for her own gratification. She really thought she was consummating a grand act of self-denial, and wept a few pitiful tears over her own hard lot.

In the morning Peter was unusually kind to her. He noticed the baby, and even allowed her to lay it in his arms while she brought him his seal-skin cloak and woolen mufflers. It was a dangerous advance for Peter; he felt his heart strangely moved by the sleeping child, and he could not avoid kissing him as he gave him back to his mother. Margaret smiled at her father in her deep joy, and said softly to him, "Now thou hast kissed me twice." Nothing that Peter could have done would have so bound her to him. He had sealed his command with that kiss, and though no word of promise was given him, he went to his store comparatively light-hearted; he was certain his daughter would not disobey him.

While this scene was transpiring, one far more pathetic was taking place in Snorro's room. Jan's clothes had been washed and mended, and he was dressing himself with an anxious desire to look well in his wife's eyes that was almost pitiful. Snorro sat watching him. Two women could hardly have been more interested in a toilet, or tried harder to make the most out of poor and small materials. Then Jan left his letter to Margaret with Snorro, and went to the cave agreed upon, to await the answer.

Very soon after Peter reached the store, Snorro left it. Peter saw him go, and he suspected his errand, but he knew the question had to be met and settled, and he felt almost sure of Margaret that morning. At any rate, she would have to decide, and the sooner the better. Margaret saw Snorro coming, but she never associated the visit with Jan. She thought her father had forgotten something and sent Snorro for it. So when he knocked, she said instantly, "Come in, Michael Snorro."

The first thing Snorro saw was the child. He went straight to the cradle and looked at it. Then he kneeled down, gently lifted the small hand outside the coverlet, and kissed it. When he rose up, his face was so full of love and delight that Margaret almost forgave him every thing. "How beautiful he is," he whispered, looking back at the sleeping babe.

Margaret smiled; she was well pleased at Snorro's genuine admiration.

"And he is so like Jan--only Jan is still more beautiful."

Margaret did not answer him. She was washing the china cups, and she stood at the table with a towel over her arm. Snorro thought her more beautiful than she had been on her wedding day. During her illness, most of her hair had been cut off, and now a small white cap covered her head, the short, pale-brown curls just falling beneath it on her brow and on her neck. A long, dark dress, a white apron, and a white lawn kerchief pinned over her bosom, completed her attire. But no lady in silk or lace ever looked half so womanly. Snorro stood gazing at her, until she said, "Well, then, what hast thou come for?"

With an imploring gesture he offered her Jan's letter.

She took it in her hand and turned it over, and over, and over. Then, with a troubled face, she handed it back to Snorro.

"No, no, no, read it! Oh, do thou read it! Jan begs thee to read it! No, no, I will not take it back!"

"I dare not read it, Snorro. It is too late--too late. Tell Jan he must not come here. It will make more sorrow for me. If he loves me at all, he will not come. He is not kind to force me to say these words. Tell him I will not, dare not, see him!"

"It is thou that art unkind. He has been shipwrecked, Margaret Vedder; bruised and cut, and nearly tossed to death by the waves. He is broken-hearted about thee. He loves thee, oh, as no woman ever deserved to be loved. He is thy husband. Thou wilt see him, oh yes, thou wilt see him!"

"I will not see him, Snorro. My father hath forbid me. If I see Jan, he will turn me and the child from the house."

"Let him. Go to thy husband and thy own home."

"My husband hath no home for me."

"For thou pulled it to pieces."

"Go away, Snorro, lest worse words come. I will not sacrifice that little innocent babe for Jan."

"It is Jan's son--thou art ruining Jan--"

"Now, wilt thou go, Michael Snorro, and tell Jan that I say what my father says: when he is worthy of me I will come to him."

"I will go, but I will tell thee first, that Jan will be worthy of thee long before thou art worthy of him." Then, ere Margaret could prevent him, he walked to the cradle, lifted the child, and kissed it again and again, saying between each kiss, "That is for thy father, little one."

The child was crying when he laid it down, and Margaret again angrily ordered him to leave the house. Before she had soothed it to peace, Snorro was nearly out of sight. Then Thora, who had heard the dispute, rose from her bed and came into the room. She looked ill and sad, and asked faintly, "What is this message sent to Jan Vedder? He will not believe it. Look for him here very soon, and be sure what thou doest is right."

"My father told me what to do."

"Yet ask thy heart and thy conscience also. It is so easy for a woman to go wrong, Margaret; it is almost impossible for her to put wrong right. Many a tear shall she wash it out with."

"I have done no wrong to Jan. Dost thou think so?"

"When one gets near the grave, Margaret, there is a little light from beyond, and many things are seen not seen before. Oh, be sure thou art right about Jan! No one can judge for thee. Fear not to do what thy heart says, for at the end right will come right, and wrong will come wrong."

There was a solemn stillness after this conversation. Thora sat bent over beside the fire musing. Margaret, wearied with the feelings which her interview with Snorro had called forth, rested upon the sofa; she was suffering, and the silence and melancholy of her mother seemed almost a wrong to her. It was almost as if she had taken Jan's part.

A knock at the door startled both women. Thora rose and opened it. It was Jan. "Mother," he said, "I want to see my wife and child."

"Margaret, speak for thyself."

"I dare not see Jan. Tell him so."

Thora repeated the message.

"Ask Margaret if that is her last word to me?"

Mechanically Thora asked the question, and after an agonizing pause Margaret gasped out, "Yes, yes--until--"

"Ask her to stand a moment at the window with the child. I long to see them." Then he turned to go to the window, and Thora shut the door. But it was little use repeating Jan's request, Margaret had fainted, and lay like one dead, and Thora forgot every thing till life returned to her daughter. Then as the apparent unkindness was irrevocable and unexplainable, she said nothing of it. Why should she add to the sorrow Margaret was suffering?

And as for Jan, the universal opinion was that he ought to suffer. He had forfeited his wife, and his home, and his good name, and he had lost his boat. When a man has calamity upon calamity the world generally concludes that he must be a very wicked man to deserve them. Perhaps the world is right; but it is also just possible that the world, even with its six thousand years of gathered wisdom, may be wrong.


CHAPTER VII.


THE MAN AT DEATH'S DOOR.

"Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped,
All I could never be,
All men ignored in me,
This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped."

It must be remembered, however, that Margaret was bound by ties whose strength this generation can hardly conceive. The authority of a father over a child in England and Scotland is still a very decided one. Fifty years ago in Shetland it was almost absolute. Margaret believed the fifth commandment to be as binding upon her as the first. From her childhood it had been pointed out to her as leading all the six defining our duty to our fellow-creatures. Therefore if she thought her father's orders regarding Jan unkind, the possibility of disobeying them never presented itself.

Jan's troubles were pointed out to her as the obvious results of Jan's sins. How could he expect a blessing on a boat bought as he had bought The Solan? And what was the use of helping a man who was always so unfortunate? If Peter did not regard misfortune as a sin, he drew away from it as if it were something even worse. Sometimes God blesses a man through poverty, sometimes through riches, but until the rod blossoms even good Christians call it a chastening rod. Margaret had a dread of making her child share Jan's evil destiny: perhaps she was afraid of it for herself. Self is such an omnipresent god, that it is easy to worship him in the dark, and to obey him almost unconsciously. When Margaret recovered from her faint, she was inclined to think she deserved praise for what she called her self-denial. She knew also that her father would be satisfied with her conduct, and Peter's satisfaction took tangible forms. He had given her L100 when she broke up her home and left Jan; she certainly looked for some money equivalent for her present obedience. And yet she was quite positive this latter consideration had in no way at all influenced her decision; she was sure of that; only, there could be no harm in reflecting that a duty done would have its reward.

As for Jan, he let people say whatever they chose to say about him. To Tulloch and to Michael Snorro he described the tempest, and the desperation with which he had fought for his boat and his life; but defended himself to no one else. Day after day he passed in the retreat which Snorro had made him, and lying there he could plainly hear the men in Peter's store talk about him. Often he met the same men in Torr's at night, and he laughed bitterly to himself at their double tongues. There are few natures that would have been improved by such a discipline; to a man who had lost all faith in himself, it was a moral suicide.

Down, down, down, with the rapidity with which fine men go to ruin, went Jan. Every little thing seemed to help him to the bottom; yes, even such a trifle as his shabby clothes. But shabby clothes were not a trifle to Jan. There are men as well as women who put on respectability