An Orkney Maid by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (classic book list TXT) 📖

continually justified herself:--

"It is only natural I should have my necklace," she thought. "Norse women have always adored gold and silver and gems, and in the old days their husbands sailed long journeys and fought battles for what their women wanted. My great Aunt Christabelle often told me that many of the old Shetland and Orkney families had gold ornaments and uncut gems, hundreds of years old, hid away. I would not wonder if Grandfather has some! I dare say the bank's safe is full of them! I do not care for them but I do want my mother's wedding necklace--and I am going to have it. Right and proper it is, I should have it now. Mother would say so if she were here. Girls are women earlier than they were in her day. Twenty-one, indeed! I expect to be married long before I am twenty-one."

In less than an hour she began to watch the road for her grandfather's return. Very soon she saw him coming and he had a small parcel in his hand. Her heart gave a throb of satisfaction and she began to unplait her manifold small braids: "I shall not require to go to bed," she murmured. "Grandfather has my necklace. He will want to take it back to the bank tomorrow--I shall see about that--I promised--yes, I know! But there are ways--out of a promise."

She was, of course, delightfully grateful to receive the necklace, and Vedder could not help noticing how beautiful her loosened hair looked. Its length and thickness and waves of light colour gave to her stately, blonde beauty a magical grace, and Vedder was one of those men who admire the charms of his own family as something naturally greater than the same charms in any other family. "The Vedders carry their beauty with an air," he said, and he was right. The Vedders during the course of a few centuries of social prominence had acquired that air of superiority which impresses, and also frequently offends.

Certainly, Sunna Vedder in white silk and a handsome necklace of rubies and diamonds was an imposing picture; and Adam Vedder, in spite of his sixty-two years, was an imposing escort. It would be difficult to say why, for he was a small man in comparison with the towering Norsemen by whom he was surrounded. Yet he dominated and directed any company he chose to favour with his presence; and every man in Kirkwall either feared or honoured him. Sunna had much of his natural temperament, but she had not the driving power of his cultivated intellect. She relied on her personal beauty and the many natural arts with which Nature has made women a match for any antagonist. Had she not heard her grandfather frequently say "a beautiful woman is the best armed creature that God has made! She is as invincible as a rhinoceros!"

This night he had paid great attention to his own toilet. He was fashionably attired, neat as a new pin, and if not amiable, at least exceedingly polite. He had leaning on his arm what he considered the most beautiful creature in Scotland, and he assumed the manners of her guardian with punctilious courtesy.

There was a large company present when the Vedders reached Mrs. Brodie's--military men, a couple of naval officers, gentlemen of influence, and traders of wealth and enterprise; with a full complement of women "divinely tall and fair." Sunna made the sensation among them she expected to make. There was a sudden pause in conversation and every eye filled itself with her beauty. For just a moment, it seemed as if there was no other person present.

Then Mrs. Brodie and Colonel Belton came to meet them, and Sunna was left in the latter's charge. "Will you now dance, Miss Vedder?" he asked.

"Let us first walk about a little, Colonel. I want to find my friend, Thora Ragnor."

"I have long desired an introduction to Miss Ragnor. Is she not lovely?"

"Yes, but now only for one man. A stranger came here last week, and she was captured at once."

"How remarkable! I thought that kind of irresponsible love had gone quite out of favour and fashion."

"Not so! This youth came, saw, and conquered."

"Is it the youth I see with Ken McLeod?"

"The same. Look! There they are, together as usual."

"She is very sweet and attractive."

Sunna answered this remark by asking Thora to honour Colonel Belton with her company for a short time, saying: "In the interval I will take care of Ian Macrae." Then Thora stood up in her innocence and loveliness and she was like some creature of more ethereal nature than goes with flesh and blood. For the eye took her in as a whole, and at first noticed neither her face nor her dress in particular. Her dress was only of white tarlatan, a thin, gauze-like material long out of fashion. It is doubtful if any woman yet remembers its airy, fairy sway, and graceful folds. The filmy robe, however, was plentifully trimmed with white satin ribbon, and the waist was entirely of satin trimmed with tarlatan. The whole effect was girlish and simple, and Thora needed no other ornament but the pink and white daisies at her belt.

However, if Sunna expected Thora's manner and conversation to match the simplicity of her dress, she was disappointed. In Love's school women learn with marvellous rapidity, and Thora astonished her by falling readily into a conversation of the most up-to-date social character. She had caught the trick from Ian, a little playful fencing round the most alluring of subjects, yet it brought out the simplicity of her character, while it also revealed its purity and intelligence.

Dancing had commenced when Mrs. Ragnor entered the room on the arm of her son Boris. Boris instantly looked around for Sunna and she was dancing with McLeod. All the evening afterwards Boris danced, but never once with Sunna, and Adam Vedder watched the young man with scorn. He was the most desirable party in the room for any girl and he quite neglected the handsome Sunna Vedder. That was not his only annoyance. McLeod was dancing far too often with Sunna, and even the beautiful youth Ian Macrae had only asked her hand once; and Adam was sure that Thora Ragnor had been the suggester of that act of politeness. Girls far inferior to Sunna in every respect had received more attention than his granddaughter. He was greatly offended, but he appeared to turn his back on the whole affair and to be entirely occupied in conversation with Conall Ragnor and Colonel Belton concerning the war with Russia.

Every way the evening was to Sunna a great disappointment, in many respects she felt it to be a great humiliation; and the latter feeling troubled her more for her grandfather than for herself. She knew he was mortified, for he did not speak to her as they walked through the chill, damp midnight to their home. Mrs. Brodie had urged Adam and Sunna to put the night past at her house, but Adam had been proof against all her suggestions, and even against his own desires. So he satisfied his temper by walking home and insisting on Sunna doing likewise.

It was a silent, unhappy walk. Adam said not a word to Sunna and she would not open the way for his anger to relieve itself. When they reached home they found a good fire in the room full of books which Adam called his own, and there they went. Then Sunna let her long dress fall down, and put out her sandalled feet to the warmth of the fire. Adam glanced into her face and saw that it was full of trouble.

"Go to thy bed, Sunna," he said. "Of this night thou must have had enough."

"I have had too much, by far. If only thou loved me!"

"Who else do I love? There is none but thee."

"Then with some one thou ought to be angry."

"Is it with Boris Ragnor I should be angry?"

"Yes! It is with Boris Ragnor. Not once did he ask me to dance. Watching him and me were all the girls. They saw how he slighted me, and made little nods and laughs about it."

"It was thy own fault. When Boris came into the room, he looked for thee. With McLeod thou wert dancing. With that Scot thou wert dancing! The black look on his face, I saw it, thou should have seen it and have given him a smile--Pshaw! Women know so much--and do so little. By storm thou ought to have taken the whole affair for thy own. I am disappointed in thee--yes, I am disappointed."

"Why, Grandfather?"

"An emergency thou had to face, and thou shirked it. When Boris entered the room, straight up to him thou should have gone; with an outstretched hand and a glad smile thou should have said: 'I am waiting for thee, Boris!' Then thou had put all straight that was crooked, and carried the evening in thy own hands."

"I will pay Boris for this insult. Yes, I will, and thou must help me."

"To quarrel with Boris? To injure him in any way? No! that I will not do. It would be to quarrel also with my old friend Conall. Not thee! Not man or woman living, could make me do that! Sit down and I will tell thee a better way."

"No, I will not sit down till thou say 'yes' to what I ask"; for some womanly instinct told her that while Adam was cowering over the hearth blaze and she stood in all her beauty and splendour above him, she controlled the situation. "Thou must help me!"

"To what or whom?"

"I want to marry Boris."

"Dost thou love him?"

"Better than might be. When mine he is all mine, then I will love him."

"That is little to trust to."

"Thou art wrong. It is of reasons one of the best and surest. Not three months ago, a little dog followed thee home, an ugly, half-starved little mongrel, not worth a shilling; but it was determined to have thee for its master, and thou called it thy dog, and now it is petted and pampered and lies at thy feet, and barks at every other dog, and thou says it is the best dog on the Island. It is the same way with husbands. Thou hast seen how Mary Minorie goes on about her bald, scrimpy husband; yet she burst out crying when he put the ring on her finger. Now she tells all the girls that marriage is 'Paradise Regained.' When Boris is my husband it will be well with me, and not bad for him. He will be mine, and we love what is our own."

"Why wilt thou marry any man? Thou wilt be rich."

"One must do as the rest of the world does--and the world has the fashion of marrying."

"Money rules love."

"No!"

"Yes! Bolon Flett had only scorn for his poor little wife until her uncle left her two thousand pounds. Since then, no word is long enough or good enough for her excellencies. Money opens the eyes as well as the heart. What then, if I make Boris rich?"

"Boris is too proud to take money from thee and I will not be sold to any man!"

"Wilt thou wait until my meaning is given thee--flying off in a temper like a foolish woman!"

"I am sorry--speak thy meaning."

"Sit down. Thou art not begging anything."

"Not from thee.