Just What He Deserved

There is not in its own way a more distinctive and interesting bit of
Scotland than the bleak Lothian country, with its wide views, its brown
ploughed fields, and its dense swaying plantations of fir. The
Lammermoor Hills and the Pentlands and the veils of smoke that lie about
Edinburgh are on its horizon, and within that circle all the large
quietude of open grain fields, wide turnip lands, where sheep feed, and
far-stretching pastures where the red and white cows ruminate. The
patient processes of nature breed patient minds; the gray cold climate
can be read in the faces of the people, and in their hearts the seasons
take root and grow; so that they have a grave character, passive, yet
enduring; strong to feel and strong to act when the time is full ready
for action.
Of these natural peculiarities Jean Anderson had her share. She was a
Lothian lassie of many generations, usually undemonstrative, but with
large possibilities of storm beneath her placid face and gentle manner.
Her father was the minister of Lambrig and the manse stood in a very
sequestered corner of the big parish, facing the bleak east winds, and
the salt showers of the German ocean. It was sheltered by dark fir woods
on three sides, and in front a little walled-in garden separated it from
the long, dreary, straight line of turnpike road. But Jean had no
knowledge of any fairer land; she had read of flowery pastures and rose
gardens and vineyards, but these places were to her only in books, while
the fields and fells that filled her eyes were her home, and she loved
them.
She loved them all the more because the man she loved was going to leave
them, and if Gavin Burns did well, and was faithful to her, then it was
like to be that she also would go far away from the blue Lammermuirs,
and the wide still spaces of the Lothians. She stood at the open door of
the manse with her lover thinking of these things, but with no real
sense of what pain or deprivation the thought included. She was tall and
finely formed, a blooming girl, with warmly-colored cheeks, a mouth
rather large and a great deal of wavy brown hair. But the best of all
her beauty was the soul in her face; its vitality, its vivacity and
immediate response.
However, the time of love had come to her, and though her love had grown
as naturally as a sapling in a wood, who could tell what changes it
would make. For Gavin Burns had been educated in the minister's house
and Jean and he had studied and fished and rambled together all through
the years in which Jean had grown from childhood into womanhood. Now
Gavin was going to New York to make his fortune. They stepped through
the garden and into the long dim road, walking slowly in the calm night,
with thoughtful faces and clasped hands. There was at this last hour
little left to say. Every promise known to Love had been given; they had
exchanged Bibles and broken a piece of silver and vowed an eternal
fidelity. So, in the cold sunset they walked silently by the river that
was running in flood like their own hearts. At the little stone bridge
they stopped, and leaning over the parapet watched the drumly water
rushing below; and there Jean reiterated her promise to be Gavin's wife
as soon as he was able to make a home for her.
"And I am not proud, Gavin," she said; "a little house, if it is filled
with love, will make me happy beyond all."
They were both too hopeful and trustful and too habitually calm to weep
or make much visible lament over their parting; and yet when Gavin
vanished into the dark of the lonely road, Jean shut the heavy house
door very slowly. She felt as if she was shutting part of herself out of
the old home forever, and she was shocked by this first breaking of the
continuity of life; this sharp cutting of regular events asunder.
Gavin's letters were at first frequent and encouraging, but as the
months went by he wrote more and more seldom. He said "he was kept so
busy; he was making himself indispensable, and could not afford to be
less busy. He was weary to death on the Saturday nights, and he could
not bring his conscience to write anent his own personal and earthly
happiness on the Sabbath day; but he was sure Jean trusted in him,
whether he wrote or not; and they were past being bairns, always telling
each other the love they were both so sure of."
Late in the autumn the minister died of typhoid fever, and Jean,
heartbroken and physically worn out, was compelled to face for her
mother and herself, a complete change of life. It had never seemed to
these two women that anything could happen to the father and head of the
family; in their loving hearts he had been immortal, and though the
disease had run its tedious course before their eyes, his death at the
last was a shock that shook their lives and their home to the very
centre. A new minister was the first inevitable change, and then a
removal from the comfortable manse to a little cottage in the village of
Lambrig.
While this sad removal was in progress they had felt the sorrow of it,
all that they could bear; and neither had dared to look into the future
or to speculate as to its necessities. Jean in her heart expected Gavin
would at once send for them to come to America. He had a fair salary,
and the sale of their furniture would defray their traveling expenses.
She was indeed so sure of this journey, that she did not regard the
cottage as more than a temporary shelter during the approaching winter.
In the spring, no doubt, Gavin would have a little home ready, and they
would cross the ocean to it. The mother had the same thought. As they
sat on their new hearthstone, lonely and poor, they talked of this
event, and if any doubts lurked unconsciously below their love and trust
they talked them away, while they waited for Gavin's answer to the
sorrowful letter Jean had sent him on the night of her father's burial.
It was longer in coming than they expected. For a week they saw the
postman pass their door with an indifference that seemed cruel; for a
week Jean made new excuses and tried to hold up her mother's heart,
while her own was sinking lower and lower. Then one morning the
looked-for answer came. Jean fled to a room apart to read it alone; Mrs.
Anderson sat down and waited, with dropped eyes and hands tightly
clasped. She knew, before Jean said a word, that the letter had
disappointed her. She had remained alone too long. If all had been as
they hoped the mother was certain Jean would not have deferred the good
tidings a moment. But a quarter of an hour had passed before Jean came
to her side, and then when she lifted her eyes she saw that her daughter
had been weeping.
"It is a disappointment, Jean, I see," she said sadly. "Never mind,
dearie."
"Yes, mother; Gavin has failed us."
"We have been two foolish women, Jean. Oh, my dear lassie, we should
have lippened to God, and He would not have disappointed us! What does
Gavin Burns say?"
"It is what he does _not_ say, that hurts me, mother. I may as well tell
you the whole truth. When he heard how ill father was, he wrote to me,
as if he had foreseen what was to happen. He said, 'there will be a new
minister and a break-up of the old home, and you must come at once to
your new home here. I am the one to care for you when your father is
gone away; and what does it matter under what sun or sky if we are but
together?' So, then, mother, when the worst had come to us I wrote with
a free heart to Gavin. I said, 'I will come to you gladly, Gavin, but
you know well that my mother is very dear to me, and where I am there
she also must be.' And he says, in this letter, that it is me he is
wanting, and that you have a brother in Glasgow that is unmarried and
who will be willing, no doubt, to have you keep his house for him. There
is a wale of fine words about it, mother, but they come to just this,
and no more--Gavin is willing to care for me, but not for you and I will
not trust myself with a man that cannot love you for my sake. We will
stay together, mammy darling! Whatever comes or goes we will stay
together. The man isna born that can part us two!"
"He is your lover, Jean. A girl must stick to her lover."
"You are my mother. I am bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh and
love of your love. May God forsake me when I forsake you!"
She had thrown herself at her mother's knees and was clasping and
kissing the sad face so dear to her, as she fervently uttered the last
words. And the mother was profoundly touched by her child's devotion.
She drew her close to her heart, and said firmly:
"No! No, my dearie! What could we two do for ourselves? And I'm loth to
part you and Gavin. I simply cannot take the sacrifice, you so lovingly
offer me. I will write to my brother David. Gavin isna far wrong there;
David is a very close man, but he willna see his sister suffer, there
is no fear of that."
"It is Jean that will not see you suffer."
"But the bite and the sup, Jean? How are we to get them?"
"I can make my own dresses and cloaks, so then I can make dresses and
cloaks for other people. I shall send out a card to the ladies near-by
and put an advertisement in the Haddington newspaper, and God can make
my needle sharp enough for the battle. Don't cry, mother! Oh, darling,
don't cry! We have God and each other, and none can call us desolate."
"But you will break your heart, Jean. You canna help it. And I canna
take your love and happiness to brighten my old age. It isna right. I'll
not do it. You must go to Gavin. I will go to my brother David."
"I will not break my heart, mother. I will not shed a tear for the
false, mean lad, that you were so kind to for fourteen years, when there
was no one else to love him. Aye, I know he paid for his board and
schooling, but he never could pay for the mother-love you gave him, just
because he was motherless. And who has more right to have their life
brightened by my love than you have? Beside, it is my happiness to
brighten it, and so, what will you say against it? And I will not go to
Gavin. Not one step. If he wants me now, he will come for me, and for
you, too. This is sure as death! Oh, mammy! Mammy, darling, a false lad
shall not part us! Never! Never! Never!"
"Jean! Jean! What will I say at all"
"What would my father say, if he was here this minute? He would say,
'you are right, Jean! And God bless you, Jean! And you may be sure that
it is all for the best, Jean! So take the right road with a glad heart,
Jean!' That is what father would say. And I will never do anything to
prevent me looking him straight in the face when we meet again. Even in
heaven I shall want him to smile into my eyes and say, 'Well done,
Jean!'"

CHAPTER II.
Jean's plans for the future were humble and reasonable enough to insure
them some measure of success, and the dreaded winter passed not
uncomfortably away. Then in the summer Uncle David Nicoll came to
Lambrig and boarded with his sister, paying a pound a week, and giving
her, on his departure, a five-pound note to help the next winter's
expenses. This order of things went on without change or intermission
for five years, and the little cottage gradually gathered in its clean,
sweet rooms, many articles of simple use and beauty. Mrs. Anderson took
entire charge of the housekeeping. Jean's needle flew swiftly from
morning to night, and though the girl had her share of the humiliations
and annoyances incident to her position, these did not interfere with
the cheerful affection and mutual help which brightened their lonely
life.
She heard nothing from Gavin. After some painful correspondence, in
which neither would retract a step from the stand they had taken, Gavin
ceased writing, and Jean ceased expecting, though before this calm was
reached she had many a bitter hour the mother never suspected. But such
hours were to Jean's soul what the farmer's call "growing weather;" in
them much rich thought and feeling sprang up insensibly; her nature
ripened and mellowed and she became a far lovelier woman than her
twentieth year had promised.
One gray February afternoon, when the rain was falling steadily, Jean
felt unusually depressed and weary. An apprehension of some unhappiness
made her sad, and she could not sew for the tears that would dim her
eyes. Suddenly the door opened and Gavin's sister Mary entered. Jean did
not know her very well, and she did not like her at all, and she
wondered what she had come to tell her.
"I am going to New York on Saturday, Jean," she said, "and I thought
Gavin would like to know how you looked and felt these days."
Jean flushed indignantly. "You can see how I look easy enough, Mary
Burns," she answered; "but as to how I feel, that is a thing I keep to
myself these days."
"Gavin has furnished a pretty house at the long last, and I am to be the
mistress of it. You will have heard, doubtless, that the school where I
taught so long has been broken up, and so I was on the world, as one may
say, and Gavin could not bear that. He is a good man, is Gavin, and I'm
thinking I shall have a happy time with him in America."
"I hope you will, Mary. Give him a kind wish from me; and I will bid you
'good bye' now, if you please, seeing that I have more sewing to do
to-night than I can well manage."
This event wounded Jean sorely. She felt sure Mary had only called for
an unkind purpose, and that she would cruelly misrepresent her
appearance and condition to Gavin. And no woman likes even a lost lover
to think scornfully of her. But she brought her sewing beside her mother
and talked the affair over with her, and so, at the end of the evening,
went to bed resigned, and even cheerful. Never had they spent a more
confidential, loving night together, and this fact was destined to be a
comfort to Jean during all the rest of her life. For in the morning she
noticed a singular look on her mother's face and at noon she found her
in her chair fast in that sleep which knows no wakening in this world.
It was a blow which put all other considerations far out of Jean's mind.
She mourned with a passionate sorrow her loss, and though Uncle David
came at once to assist her in the necessary arrangements, she suffered
no hand but her own to do the last kind offices for her dear dead. And
oh! how empty and lonely was now the little cottage, while the swift
return to all the ordinary duties of life seemed such a cruel
effacement. Uncle David watched her silently, but on the evening of the
third day after the funeral he said, kindly:
"Dry your eyes, Jean. There is naething to weep for. Your mother is far
beyond tears."
"I cannot bear to forget her a minute, uncle, yet folks go and come and
never name her; and it is not a week since she had a word and a smile
for everybody."
    "Death is forgetfulness, Jean;
                ... 'one lonely way
    We go: and is she gone?
    Is all our best friends say.'
"You must come home with me now, Jean. I canna be what your mother has
been to you, but I'll do the best I can for you, lassie. Sell these bit
sticks o' furniture and shut the door on the empty house and begin a new
life. You've had sorrow about a lad; let him go. All o' the past worth
your keeping you can save in your memory."
"I will be 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
here."
"What for no? The house is her ain. She is Mistress Sharp, and that is
the professor with her. He is a great gun in the Glasgow University."
"They are married, then?"
"Ay, they are married. What are you saying at all? They were married a
month syne, and they are as happy as robins in spring, I'm thinking.
I'll drink their health, sir, if you'll gie me the bit o' siller."
Gavin gave the silver and turned away dazed and sick at heart. His
business in Scotland was over. The quiet Lothian country sickened him;
he turned his face to London, and very soon went back to New York. He
had lost Jean, and he had lost Jean's fortune; and there were no words
to express his chagrin and disappointment. His sister felt the first
weight of it. He blamed her entirely. She had lied to him about Jean's
beauty. He believed he would have liked the photo but for Mary. And all
for Annie Riley! He hated Annie Riley! He was resolved never to marry
her, and he let the girl feel his dislike in no equivocal manner.
For a time Annie was tearful and conciliating. Then she wrote him a
touching letter, and asked him to tell her frankly if he had ceased to
love her, and was resolved to break their marriage off. And Gavin did
tell her, with almost brutal frankness, that he no longer loved her, and
that he had firmly made up his mind not to marry her. He said something
about his heart being in Scotland, but that was only a bit of sentiment
that he thought gave a better air to his unfaithfulness.
Annie did not answer his letter, but Messrs. Howe & Hummel did, and
Gavin soon found himself the centre of a breach of promise trial, with
damages laid at fifty thousand dollars. All his fine poetical love
letters were in the newspapers; he was ashamed to look men and women in
the face; he suffered a constant pillory for weeks; through his vanity,
his self-consciousness, his egotism he was perpetually wounded. But
pretty Annie Riley was the object of public pity and interest, and she
really seemed to enjoy her notoriety. The verdict was righteously enough
in her favor. The jury gave her ten thousand dollars, and all expenses,
and Gavin Burns was a ruined man. His eleven years savings only amounted
to nine thousand dollars, and for the balance he was compelled to sell
his furniture and give notes payable out of his next year's salary. He
wept like a child as he signed these miserable vouchers for his folly,
and for some days was completely prostrated by the evil he had called
unto himself. Then the necessities of his position compelled him to go
to work again, though it was with a completely broken spirit.
"I'm getting on to forty," he said to his sister, "and I am beginning
the world over again! One woman has given me a disappointment that I
will carry to the grave; and another woman is laughing at me, for she
has got all my saved siller, and more too; forbye, she is like to marry
Bob Severs and share it with him. Then I have them weary notes to meet
beyond all. There never was a man so badly used as I have been!"
No one pitied him much. Whatever his acquaintances said to his face he
knew right well their private opinion was that he had received _just
what he deserved_.