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

thinks that he has treated you properly, but I promised him to make sure of it."

The decision at Aberdeen was highly favorable. Jan was assured that he might be on deck a few hours every day, with great advantage to his health. They remained in Aberdeen two days. On the second day a trunk bearing his name was brought on board. Lord Lynne was on shore at the time, but his valet had it taken to Jan's room and opened. It contained a quantity of linen and clothing.

Jan had a love for good clothing. He felt its influence, and without reasoning about the matter, felt that it influenced every one else. When he had put on the linen, and a yachting suit with its gilt buttons, and had knotted the handkerchief at his neck, he felt that in all eyes he was a different being from Vedder the fisherman.

It would have been a difficult matter to Lord Lynne to have given clothing to some men, but Jan had not a vulgar feeling. He made no protestations, no excuses, no promises of repayment; he was not offensively demonstrative in his gratitude. He took the gift, as the gift had been given, with pleasure and confidence, and he looked handsome and noble in every thing he put on.

Lord Lynne was proud of him. He liked to see his crew watch Jan. He encouraged his valet to tell him what they said of him. Every one had invented some romance about the yacht's visitor; no one supposed him to be of less than noble birth. The cook had a theory that he was some prince who had got into trouble with his father. The secrecy with which he had been brought on board at midnight, his scarcely healed wound, the disguise of a fisherman's dress, were all regarded as positive proofs of some singular and romantic adventure. On board "The Lapwing" Jan was the central point of every man's interest and speculations.

And at this time, even Lord Lynne was a little in the dark regarding Jan. Dr. Balloch had only spoken of him as a young man going to ruin for want of some friends. Incidentally he had alluded to his matrimonial troubles, and, one evening when they were walking, he had pointed out Margaret Vedder. She was standing on the Troll Rock looking seaward. The level rays of the setting sun fell upon her. She stood, as it were, in a glory; and Lord Lynne had been much struck with her noble figure and with the set melancholy of her fine face.

So he knew that Jan had had trouble about his wife, and also that he had been wounded in a fight; and putting the two things together he made a perfectly natural inference. He was aware, also, that Margaret was Peter Fae's daughter and a probable heiress. If he thought of Jan's social position, he doubtless considered that only a Shetland gentleman would aspire to her hand. But he made no effort whatever to gain Jan's confidence; if he chose to give it, he would do so at the proper time, and without it they were very happy. For Lord Lynne had been a great traveler, and Jan never wearied of hearing about the places he had visited. With a map before him, he would follow every step up and down Europe. And across Asian seas, through Canadian cities, and the great plains of the West, the two men in memory and imagination went together.

Nothing was said of Jan's future; he asked no questions, gave no hints, exhibited no anxiety. He took his holiday in holiday spirit, and Lord Lynne understood and appreciated the unselfishness and the gentlemanly feeling which dictated the apparent indifference. At Margate the yacht went into harbor. Lord Lynne expected letters there, which he said would decide his movements for the winter. He was silent and anxious when he landed; he was in a mood of reckless but assumed indifference when he came on board again.

After dinner he spread the large map on the saloon table, and said: "Vedder, what do you say to a few months' cruise in the Mediterranean? I am not wanted at home, and I should like to show you some of the places we have talked about. Suppose we touch at the great Spanish ports, at Genoa, Venice, Naples and Rome, and then break the winter among the Isles of Greece and the old Ionian cities?"

Jan's face beamed with delight; there was no need for him to speak.

"And," continued his lordship, "as I sleep a great deal in warm climates, I shall want a good sailor aboard. I saw by the way you handled the yacht during that breeze in 'The Wash,' that you are one. Will you be my lieutenant this winter? I will pay you L100 a quarter; that will keep you in pocket money."

"That will be a great deal of money to me, and I shall be very glad to earn it so pleasantly."

"Then that settles matters for a few months--when we get back it will be time to buckle to work. Heigh-ho! Lieutenant, head 'The Lapwing' for the Bay of Biscay, and we will set our faces toward sunshine, and cast care and useless regret behind our backs."

At Gibraltar Lord Lynne evidently expected letters, but they did not come. Every mail he was anxious and restless, every mail he was disappointed. At length he seemed to relinquish hope, and 'The Lapwing' proceeded on her voyage. One night they were drifting slowly off the coast of Spain. The full moon shone over a tranquil sea, and the wind blowing off shore, filled the sails with the perfume of orange blossoms. Lord Lynne had sent that day a boat into Valencia, hoping for letters, and had been again disappointed. As he walked the deck with Jan in the moonlight, he said sadly, "I feel much troubled to-night, Jan."

"Ever since we were in Gibraltar I have seen that thou hast some trouble, my lord. And I am sorry for thee; my own heart is aching to-night; for that reason I can feel for thy grief too."

"I wonder what trouble could come to a man hid away from life in such a quiet corner of the world as Shetland?"

"There is no corner too quiet, or too far away, for a woman to make sorrow in it."

"By every thing! You are right, Jan."

There was a few minutes' silence, and then Jan said: "Shall I tell thee what trouble came to me through a woman in Shetland?"

"I would like to hear about it."

Then Jan began. He spoke slowly and with some hesitation at first. His youth was connected with affairs about which the Shetlanders always spoke cautiously. His father had been one of the boldest and most successful of the men who carried on that "French trade" which the English law called smuggling. He had made money easily, had spent it lavishly, and at the last had gone to the bottom with his ship, rather than suffer her to be taken. His mother had not long survived her husband, but there had been money enough left to educate and provide for Jan until he reached manhood.

"I was ten years old when mother died," he continued, "and since then no one has really loved me but Michael Snorro. I will tell thee how our love began. One day I was on the pier watching the loading of a boat. Snorro was helping with her cargo, and the boys were teasing him, because of his clumsy size and ugly face. One of them took Snorro's cap off his head and flung it into the water. I was angry at the coward, and flung him after it, nor would I let him out of the water till he brought Snorro's cap with him. I shall never forget the look Snorro gave me that hour. Ever since we have been close friends. I will tell thee now how he hath repaid me for that deed."

Then Jan spoke of Margaret's return from school; of their meeting at one Fisherman's Foy, and of their wedding at the next. All of Peter's kindness and subsequent injustice; all of Margaret's goodness and cruelty, all of Snorro's affection and patience he told. He made nothing better nor worse. His whole life, as he knew and could understand it, he laid before Lord Lynne.

"And so thou sees," he concluded, "how little to blame and how much to blame I have been. I have done wrong and I have suffered. Yes, I suffer yet, for I love my wife and she has cast me off. Dost thou think I can ever be worthy of her?"

"I see, Jan, that what you said is true--in any corner of the earth where women are, they can make men suffer. As to your worthiness, I know not. There are some women so good, that only the angels of heaven could live with them. That L600 was a great mistake."

"I think that now."

"Jan, life is strangely different and yet strangely alike. My experience has not been so very far apart from yours. I was induced to marry when only twenty-one a lady who is my inferior in rank, but who is a very rich woman. She is a few years older than I, but she is beautiful, full of generous impulses, and well known for her charitable deeds."

"You are surely fortunate."

"I am very unhappy."

"Does she not love thee?"

"Alas! she loves me so much that she makes both her own and my life miserable."

"That is what I do not understand."

"Her love is a great love, but it is a selfish love. She is willing that I should be happy in her way, but in no other. I must give her not only my affection, but my will, my tastes, my duties to every other creature. My friends, horses, dogs, even this yacht, she regards as enemies; she is sure that every one of them takes the thought and attention she ought to have. And the hardest part is, that her noble side only is seen by the world. I alone suffer from the fault that spoils all. Consequently the world pities her, and looks upon me very much as the people of Lerwick looked on you."

"And can thou do nothing for thy own side?"

"Nothing. I am in the case of a very worthy old Roman lord who desired to divorce his wife. There was a great outcry. All his friends were amazed. 'Is she not handsome, virtuous, rich, amiable?' they asked. 'What hath she done to thee?' The Roman husband pointed to his sandal. 'Is it not new, is it not handsome and well made? But none of you can tell where it pinches me.' That old Roman and I are brothers. Every one praises 'my good wife, my rich wife, my handsome wife,' but for all that, the matrimonial shoe pinches me."

This confidence brought the two men near together. Henceforward there was no lack of conversation. While every other subject fails, a domestic grievance is always new. It can be looked at in so many ways. It has touched us on every side of our nature. We are never quite sure where we have been right, and where wrong. So Lord Lynne and Jan talked of 'My Lady' in Lynnton Castle, and of Margaret Vedder in her Shetland home, but the conversations were not in the main unkind ones. Very early in them Lynne told Jan how he had once seen his wife standing on the Troll Rock at sunset,