Winter Evening Tales by Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr (books to read now TXT) 📖

glad to go with you, uncle. I shall be no charge on you. I can find my own bread if you will just love me a little."

"I'm no that poor, Jean. You are welcome to share my loaf. Put that weary; thimble and needle awa'; I'll no see you take another stitch."

So Jean followed her uncle's advice and went back with him to Glasgow. He had never said a word about his home, and Jean knew not what she expected--certainly nothing more than a small floor in some of the least expensive streets of the great city. It was dark when they reached Glasgow, but Jean was sensible of a great change in her uncle's manner as soon as they left the railway. He made an imperative motion and a carriage instantly answered it; and they were swiftly driven to a large dwelling in one of the finest crescents of the West end. He led her into a handsome parlor and called a servant, and bid her "show Miss Anderson her rooms;" and thus, without a word of preparation, Jean found herself surrounded by undreamed of luxury.

Nothing was ever definitely explained to her, but she gradually learned to understand the strange old man who assumed the guardianship of her life. His great wealth was evident, and it was not long ere she discovered that it was largely spent in two directions--scientific discovery and the Temperance Crusade. Men whose lives were devoted to chemistry or to electrical investigations, or passionate apostles of total abstinence from intoxicants were daily at his table; and Jean could not help becoming an enthusiastic partisan on such matters. One of the savants, a certain Professor Sharp, fell deeply in love with her; and she felt it difficult to escape the influence of his wooing, which had all the persistent patience of a man accustomed "to seek till he found, and so not lose his labor."

Her life was now very happy. Cautious in giving his love, David Nicoll gave it freely as soon as he had resolved to adopt his niece. Nor did he ever regret the gift. "Jean entered my house and she made it a home," he said to his friends. No words could have better explained the position. In the winter they entertained with a noble hospitality; in the summer they sailed far north to the mystical isles of the Western seas; to Orkney and Zetland and once even as far as the North Cape by the light of the midnight sun. So the time passed wonderfully away, until Jean was thirty-two years old. The simple, unlettered girl had then become a woman of great culture and of perfect physical charm. Wise in many ways, she yet kept her loving heart, and her uncle delighted in her. "You have made my auld age parfectly happy, Jean," he said to her on the last solemn night of his life; "and I thank God for the gift o' your honest love! Now that I am going the way of all flesh, I have gi'en you every bawbee I have. I have put no restrictions on you, and I have left nae dead wishes behind me. You will do as you like wi' the land and the siller, and you will do right in a' things, I ken that, Jean. If it should come into your heart to tak' the love Professor Sharp offers you, I'll be pleased, for he'll never spend a shilling that willna be weel spent; and he is a clever man, and a good man and he loves you. But it is a' in your ain will; do as you like, anent either this or that."

This was the fourth great change in Jean's life. Gavin's going away had opened the doors of her destiny; her father's death had sent her to the school of self-reliant poverty; her mother's death given her a home of love and luxury, and now her uncle put her in a position of vast, untrammeled responsibility. But if love is the joy of life, this was not the end; the crowning change was yet to come; and now, with both her hands full, her heart involuntarily turned to her first lover.

About this time, also, Gavin was led to remember Jean. His sister Mary was going to marry, and the circumstance annoyed him. "I'll have to store my furniture and pay for the care of it; or I'll have to sell it at a loss; or I'll have to hire a servant lass, and be robbed on the right hand and the left," he said fretfully. "It was not in the bargain that you should marry, and it is very bad behavior in you, Mary."

"Well, Gavin, get married yourself, and the furnishing will not be wasted," answered Mary. "There is Annie Riley, just dying for the love of you, and no brighter, smarter girl in New York city."

"She isn't in love with me; she is tired of the Remington all day; and if I wanted a wife, there is some one better than Annie Riley."

"Jean Anderson?"

"Ay."

"Send for her picture, and you will see what a plain, dowdy old maid she is. She is not for the like of you, Gavin--a bit country dressmaker, poor, and past liking."

Gavin said no more, but that night he wrote Jean Anderson the following letter: "Dear Jean. I wish you would send me a picture of yourself. If you will not write me a word, you might let me have your face to look at. Mary is getting herself married, and I will be alone in a few days." That is enough, he thought; "she will understand that there is a chance for her yet, if she is as bonnie as in the old days. Mary is not to be trusted. She never liked Jean. I'll see for myself."

Jean got this letter one warm day in spring, and she "understood" it as clearly as Gavin intended her to. For a long time she sat thinking it over, then she went to a drawer for a photo, taken just before her mother's death. It showed her face without any favor, without even justice, and the plain merino gown, which was then her best. And with this picture she wrote--"Dear Gavin. The enclosed was taken five years since, and there has been changes since."

She did not say what the changes were, but Gavin was sure they were unfavorable. He gazed at the sad, thoughtful face, the poor plain dress, and he was disappointed. A girl like that would do his house no honor; he would not care to introduce her to his fellow clerks; they would not envy him a bit. Annie Riley was far better looking, and far more stylish. He decided in favor of Annie Riley.

Jean was not astonished when no answer came. She had anticipated her failure to please her old lover; but she smiled a little sadly at his failure. Then there came into her mind a suspicion of Mary, an uncertainty, a lingering hope that some circumstance, not to be guessed at from a distance, was to blame for Gavin's silence and utter want of response. It was midsummer, she wanted a breath of the ocean; why should she not go to New York and quietly see how things were for herself? The idea took possession of her, and she carried it out.

She knew the name of the large dry goods firm that Gavin served, and the morning after her arrival in New York she strolled into it for a pair of gloves. As they were being fitted on she heard Gavin speak, and moving her position slightly, she saw him leaning against a pile of summer blankets. He was talking to one of his fellows, and evidently telling a funny story, at which both giggled and snickered, ere they walked their separate ways. Being midsummer the store was nearly empty, and Jean, by varying her purchases, easily kept Gavin in sight. She never for one moment found the sight a pleasant one. Gavin had deteriorated in every way. He was no longer handsome; the veil of youth had fallen from him, and his face, his hands, his figure, his slouching walk, his querulous authoritative voice, all revealed a man whom Jean repelled at every point. Years had not refined, they had vulgarized him. His clothing careless and not quite fresh, offended her taste; in fact, his whole appearance was of that shabby genteel character, which is far more mean and plebeian than can be given by undisguised working apparel. As Jean was taking note of these things a girl, with a flushed, angry face, spoke to him. She was evidently making a complaint, and Gavin answered her in a manner which made Jean burn from head to feet. The disillusion was complete; she never looked at him again, and he never knew she had looked at him at all.

But after Mary's marriage he heard news which startled him. Mary, under her new name, wrote to an acquaintance in Lambrig, and this acquaintance in reply said, "You will have heard that Jean Anderson was left a great fortune by her uncle, David Nicoll. She is building a home near Lambrig that is finer than Maxwell Castle; and Lord Maxwell has rented the castle to her until her new home is finished. You wouldn't ken the looks of her now, she is that handsome, but weel-a-way, fine feathers aye make fine birds!"

Gavin fairly trembled when he heard this news, and as he had been with the firm eleven years and never asked a favor, he resolved to tell them he had important business in Scotland, and ask for a month's holiday to attend to it. If he was on the ground he never doubted his personal influence. "Jean was aye wax in my fingers," he said to Mary.

"There is Annie Riley," answered Mary.

"She will have to give me up. I'll not marry her. I am going to marry Jean, and settle myself in Scotland."

"Annie is not the girl to be thrown off that kind of way, Gavin. You have promised to marry her."

"I shall marry Jean Anderson, and then what will Annie do about it, I would like to know?"

"I think you will find out."

In the fall he obtained permission to go to Scotland for a month, and he hastened to Lambrig as fast as steam could carry him. He intended no secret visit; he had made every preparation to fill his old townsmen with admiration and envy. But things had changed, even in Lambrig. There was a new innkeeper, who could answer none of his questions, and who did not remember Minister Anderson and his daughter, Jean. He began to fear he had come on a fool's errand, and after a leisurely, late breakfast, he strolled out to make his own investigations.

There was certainly a building on a magnificent scale going up on a neighboring hill, and he walked toward it. When half way there a finely-appointed carriage passed him swiftly, but not too swiftly for him to see that Jean and a very handsome man were its occupants. "It will be her lawyer or architect," he thought; and he walked rapidly onward, pleased with himself for having put on his very best walking suit. There were many workmen on the building, and he fell into conversation with a man who was mixing mortar; but all the time he was watching Jean and her escort stepping about the great uncovered spaces of the new dwelling-house with such an air of mutual trust and happiness that it angered him.

"Who is the lady?" he asked at length; "she seems to have business