Jan Vedder's Wife

CHAPTER VIII.
DEATH AND CHANGE

 
“Wield thine own arm! – the only way
To know life is by living.”
 

When Jan awoke Snorro was standing motionless beside him. He feebly stretched out his hand, and pulled him close, closer, until his face was on the pillow beside his own.

“Oh Jan, how could’st thou? My heart hath been nearly broken for thee.”

“It is all well now, Snorro. I am going to a new life. I have buried the old one below the Troll Rock.”

Until the following night the men remained together. They had much to talk of, much that related both to the past and the future. Jan was particularly anxious that no one should know that his life had been saved: “And mind thou tell not my wife, Snorro,” he said. “Let her think herself a widow; that will please her best of all.”

“There might come a time when it would be right to speak.”

“I can not think it.”

“She might be going to marry again.”

Jan’s face darkened. “Yes, that is possible – well then, in that case, thou shalt go to the minister; he will tell thee what to do, or he himself will do it.”

“She might weep sorely for thee, so that she were like to die.”

“Mock me not, Snorro. She will not weep for me. Well then, let me pass out of memory, until I can return with honor.”

“Where wilt thou go to?”

“Dost thou remember that yacht that was tied to the minister’s jetty four weeks ago?”

“Yes, I remember it.”

“And that her owner stayed at the manse for two days?”

“Yes, I saw him. What then?”

“He will be back again, in a week, in a few days, perhaps to-morrow. He is an English lord, and a friend of the minister’s. I shall go away with him. There is to be a new life for me – another road to take; it must be a better one than that in which I have stumbled along for the last few years. Thou art glad?”

“Yes, Jan, I am glad.”

“If things should happen so that I can send for thee, wilt thou come to me?”

“Yes, to the end of the world I will come. Thee only do I love. My life is broken in two without thee.”

Every day Snorro watched the minister’s jetty, hoping, yet fearing, to see the yacht which was to carry Jan away. Every night when the town was asleep, he went to the manse to sit with his friend. At length one morning, three weeks after Jan’s disappearance, he saw the minister and the English lord enter Peter’s store together. His heart turned sick and heavy; he felt that the hour of parting was near.

Peter was to send some eggs and smoked geese on board the yacht, and the minister said meaningly to Snorro, “Be sure thou puts them on board this afternoon, for the yacht sails southward on the midnight tide.” Snorro understood the message. When the store was closed he made a bundle of Jan’s few clothes; he had washed and mended them all. With them he put the only sovereign he possessed, and his own dearly-loved copy of the Gospels. He thought, “for my sake he may open them, and then what a comfort they will be sure to give him.”

It was in Snorro’s arms Jan was carried on board at the very last moment. Lord Lynne had given him a berth in the cabin, and he spoke very kindly to Snorro. “I have heard,” he said, “that there is great love between you two. Keep your heart easy, my good fellow; I will see that no harm comes to your friend.” And the grateful look on Snorro’s face so touched him that he followed him to the deck and reiterated the promise.

It was at the last a silent and rapid parting. Snorro could not speak. He laid Jan in his berth, and covered him as tenderly as a mother would cover her sick infant. Then he kissed him, and walked away. Dr. Balloch, who watched the scene, felt the deep pathos and affection that had no visible expression but in Snorro’s troubled eyes and dropped head; and Lord Lynne pressed his hand as a last assurance that he would remember his promise concerning Jan’s welfare. Then the anchor was lifted, and the yacht on the tide-top went dancing southward before the breeze.

At the manse door the minister said, “God be thy consolation, Snorro! Is there any thing I, his servant, can do for thee?”

“Yes, thou can let me see that picture again.”

“Of the Crucified?”

“That is what I need.”

“Come then.”

He took a candle from Hamish and led him into the study. In the dim light, the pallid, outstretched figure and the divine uplifted face had a sad and awful reality. Even upon the cultivated mind and heart, fine pictures have a profound effect; on this simple soul, who never before had seen any thing to aid his imagination of Christ’s love, the effect was far more potent. Snorro stood before it a few minutes full of a holy love and reverence, then, innocently as a child might have done, he lifted up his face and kissed the pierced feet.

Dr. Balloch was strangely moved and troubled. He walked to the window with a prayer on his lips, but almost immediately returned, and touching Snorro, said —

“Take the picture with thee, Snorro. It is thine. Thou hast bought it with that kiss.”

“But thou art weeping!”

“Because I can not love as thou dost. Take what I have freely given, and go. Ere long the boats will be in and the town astir. Thou hast some room to hang it in?”

“I have a room in which no foot but mine will tread till Jan comes back again.”

“And thou wilt say no word of Jan. He must be cut loose from the past awhile. His old life must not be a drag upon his new one. We must give him a fair chance.”

“Thou knows well I am Jan’s friend to the uttermost.”

Whatever of comfort Snorro found in the pictured Christ, he sorely needed it. Life had become a blank to him. There was his work, certainly, and he did it faithfully, but even Peter saw a great change in the man. He no longer cared to listen to the gossip of the store, he no longer cared to converse with any one. When there was nothing for him to do, he sat down in some quiet corner, buried his head in his hands, and gave himself up to thought.

Peter also fancied that he shrank from him, and the idea annoyed him; for Peter had begun to be sensible of a most decided change in the tone of public opinion regarding himself. It had come slowly, but he could trace and feel it. One morning when he and Tulloch would have met on the narrow street, Tulloch, to avoid the meeting, turned deliberately around and retraced his steps. Day by day fewer of the best citizens came to pass their vacant hours in his store. People spoke to him with more ceremony, and far less kindness.

He was standing at his store door one afternoon, and he saw a group of four or five men stop Snorro and say something to him. Snorro flew into a rage. Peter knew it by his attitude, and by the passionate tones of his voice. He was vexed at him. Just at this time he was trying his very best to be conciliating to all, and Snorro was undoubtedly saying words he would, in some measure, be held accountable for.

When he passed Peter at the store door, his eyes were still blazing with anger, and his usually white face was a vivid scarlet. Peter followed him in, and asked sternly, “Is it not enough that I must bear thy ill-temper? Who wert thou talking about? That evil Jan Vedder, I know thou wert!”

“We were talking of thee, if thou must know.”

“What wert thou saying? Tell me; if thou wilt not, I will ask John Scarpa.”

“Thou wert well not to ask. Keep thy tongue still.”

“There is some ill-feeling toward me. It hath been growing this long while. Is it thy whispering against me?”

“Ask Tulloch why he would not meet thee? Ask John Scarpa what Suneva Glumm said last night?”

“Little need for me to do that, since thou can tell me.”

Snorro spoke not.

“Snorro?”

“Yes, master.”

“How many years hast thou been with me?”

“Thou knows I came to thee a little lad.”

“Who had neither home nor friends?”

“That is true yet.”

“Have I been a just master to thee?”

“Thou hast.”

“Thou, too, hast been a just and faithful servant. I have trusted thee with every thing. All has been under thy thumb. I locked not gold from thee. I counted not after thee. I have had full confidence in thee. Well, then, it seems that my good name is also in thy hands. Now, if thou doest thy duty, thou wilt tell me what Tulloch said.”

“He said thou had been the ruin of a better man than thyself.”

“Meaning Jan Vedder?”

“That was whom he meant.”

“Dost thou think so?”

“Yes, I think so, too.”

“What did Suneva Glumm say?”

“Well, then, last night, when the kitchen was full, they were talking of poor Jan; and Suneva – thou knowest she is a widow now and gone back to her father’s house – Suneva, she strode up to the table, and she struck her hand upon it, and said, ‘Jan was a fisherman, and it is little of men you fishers are, not to make inquiry about his death. Here is the matter,’ she said. ‘Snorro finds him wounded, and Snorro goes to Peter Fae’s and sends Jan’s wife to her husband. Margaret Vedder says she saw him alive and gave him water, and went back for Peter Fae. Then Jan disappears, and when Snorro gets back with a doctor and four other men, there is no Jan to be found.’ I say that Margaret Vedder or Peter Fae know what came of Jan, one, or both of them, know. But because the body has not been found, there hath been no inquest, and his mates let him go out of life like a stone dropped into the sea, and no more about it.”

“They told thee that?”

“Ay, they did; and John Scarpa said thou had long hated Jan, and he did believe thou would rather lose Jan’s life than save it. Yes, indeed!”

“And thou?”

“I said some angry words for thee. Ill thou hast been to Jan, cruel and unjust, but thou did not murder him. I do not think thou would do that, even though thou wert sure no man would know it. If I had believed thou hurt a hair of Jan’s head, I would not be thy servant to-day.”

“Thou judgest right of me, Snorro. I harmed not Jan. I never saw him. I did not want him brought to my house, and therefore I made no haste to go and help him; but I hurt not a hair of his head.”

“I will maintain that every where, and to all.”

“What do they think came of Jan?”

“What else, but that he was pushed over the cliff-edge? A very little push would put him in the sea, and the under-currents between here and the Vor Ness might carry the body far from this shore. All think that he hath been drowned.”

Then Peter turned away and sat down, silent and greatly distressed. A new and terrible suspicion had entered his mind with Snorro’s words. He was quite sure of his own innocence, but had Margaret pushed Jan over? From her own words it was evident she had been angry and hard with him. Was this the cause of the frantic despair he had witnessed. It struck him then that Margaret’s mother had ever been cold and silent, and almost resentful about the matter. She had refused to talk of it. Her whole behavior had been suspicious. He sat brooding over the thought, sick at heart with the sin and shame it involved, until Snorro said – “It is time to shut the door.” Then he put on his cloak and went home.

Home! How changed his home had become! It was a place of silence and unconfessed sorrow. All its old calm restfulness had gone. Very soon after Jan’s disappearance, Thora had taken to her bed, and she had never left it since. Peter recognized that she was dying, and this night he missed her sorely. Her quiet love and silent sympathy had been for many a year a tower of strength to him. But he could not carry this trouble to her, still less did he care to say any thing to Margaret. For the first time he was sensible of a feeling of irritation in her presence. Her white despairing face angered him. For all this trouble, in one way or another, she was responsible.

He felt, too, that full of anxiety as he was, she was hardly listening to a word he said. Her ears were strained to catch the first movement of her child, who was sleeping in the next room. To every one he had suddenly become of small importance. Both at home and abroad he felt this. To such bitter reflections he smoked his pipe, while Margaret softly sung to her babe, and Thora, with closed eyes, lay slowly breathing her life away: already so far from this world, that Peter felt as if it would be cruel selfishness to trouble her more with its wrongs and its anxieties.

Four days afterward, Thora said to her daughter: “Margaret, I had a token early this morning. I saw a glorious ship come sailing toward me. Her sails were whiter than snow under the moonshine; and at her bow stood my boy, Willie, my eldest boy, and he smiled and beckoned me. I shall go away with the next tide. Ere I go, thou tell me something?”

“Whatever thou ask me.”

“What came of poor Jan Vedder?”

Then Margaret understood the shadow that had fallen between herself and her mother; the chill which had repressed all conversation; the silent terror which had perchance hastened death.

“Oh, mother!” she cried, “did thou really have this fear? I never harmed Jan. I left him on the cliff. God knows I speak the truth. I know no more.”

“Thank God! Now I can go in peace.” Margaret had fallen on her knees by the bedside, and Thora leaned forward and kissed her.

“Shall I send for father?”

“He will come in time.”

A few hours afterward she said in a voice already far away, as if she had called back from a long distance, “When Jan returns be thou kinder to him, Margaret.”

“Will he come back? Mother, tell me!”

But there was no answer to the yearning cry. Never another word from the soul that had now cast earth behind it. Peter came home early, and stood gloomily and sorrowfully beside his companion. Just when the tide turned, he saw a momentary light flash over the still face, a thrill of joyful recognition, a sigh of peace, instantly followed by the pallor, and chill, and loneliness of death.

At the last the end had come suddenly. Peter had certainly known that his wife was dying, but he had not dreamed of her slipping off her mortal vesture so rapidly. He was shocked to find how much of his own life would go with her. Nothing could ever be again just as it had been. It troubled him also that there had been no stranger present. The minister ought to have been sent for, and some two or three of Thora’s old acquaintances. There was fresh food for suspicion in Thora Fae being allowed to pass out of life just at this time, with none but her husband and daughter near, and without the consolation of religious rites.

Peter asked Margaret angrily, why she had neglected to send for friends and for the minister?

“Mother was no worse when thou went to the store this morning. About noon she fell asleep, and knew nothing afterward. It would have been cruel to disturb her.”

But in her own heart Margaret was conscious that under any circumstances she would have shrunk from bringing strangers into the house. Since Jan’s disappearance, she had been but once to kirk, for that once had been an ordeal most painful and humiliating. None of her old friends had spoken to her; many had even pointedly ignored her. Women excel in that negative punishment which they deal out to any sister whom they conceive to have deserved it. In a score of ways Margaret Vedder had been made to feel that she was under a ban of disgrace and suspicion.

Some of this humiliation had not escaped Peter’s keen observation; but at the time he had regarded it as a part of the ill-will which he also was consciously suffering from, and which he was shrewd enough to associate with the mystery surrounding the fate of his son-in-law. Connecting it with what Snorro had said, he took it for further proof against his daughter. Thora’s silence and evident desire to be left to herself, were also corroborative. Did Thora also suspect her? Was Margaret afraid to bring the minister, lest at the last Thora might say something? For the same reason, had Thora’s old intimates been kept away? Sometimes the dying reveal things unconsciously; was Margaret afraid of this? When once suspicion is aroused, every thing feeds it. Twenty-four hours after the first doubt had entered Peter’s heart, he had almost convinced himself that Margaret was responsible for Jan’s death.

He remembered then the stories in the Sagas of the fair, fierce women of Margaret’s race. A few centuries previously they had ruled things with a high hand, and had seldom scrupled to murder the husbands who did not realize their expectations. He knew something of Margaret’s feelings by his own; her wounded self-esteem, her mortification at Jan’s failures, her anger at her poverty and loss of money, her contempt for her own position. If she had been a man, he could almost have excused her for killing Jan; that is, if she had done it in fair fight. But crimes which are unwomanly in their nature shock the hardest heart, and it was unwomanly to kill the man she had loved and chosen, and the father of her child; it was, above all, a cowardly, base deed to thrust a wounded man out of life. He tried to believe his daughter incapable of such a deed, but there were many hours in which he thought the very worst of her.

Margaret had no idea that her father nursed such suspicions; she felt only the change and separation between them. Her mother’s doubt had been a cruel blow to her; she had never been able to speak of it to her father. That he shared it, never occurred to her. She was wrapped up in her own sorrow and shame, and at the bottom of her heart inclined to blame her father for much of the trouble between her and Jan. If he had dealt fairly with Jan after the first summer’s fishing, Jan would never have been with Skager. And how eager he had been to break up her home! After all, Jan had been the injured man; he ought to have had some of her tocher down. A little ready money would have made him satisfied and happy; her life and happiness had been sacrificed to her father’s avarice. She was sure now that if the years could be called back, she would be on Jan’s side with all her heart.

Two souls living under the same roof and nursing such thoughts against each other were not likely to be happy. If they had ever come to open recrimination, things uncertain might have been explained; but, for the most part, there was only silence in Peter’s house. Hour after hour, he sat at the fireside, and never spoke to Margaret. She grew almost hysterical under the spell of this irresponsive trouble. Perhaps she understood then why Jan had fled to Torr’s kitchen to escape her own similar exhibitions of dissatisfaction.

As the months wore on, things in the store gradually resumed their normal condition. Jan was dead, Peter was living, the tide of popular feeling turned again. Undoubtedly, however, it was directed by the minister’s positive, almost angry, refusal to ask Peter before the kirk session to explain his connection with Jan’s disappearance. He had never gone much to Peter’s store, but for a time he showed his conviction of Peter’s innocence by going every day to sit with him. It was supposed, of course, that he had talked the affair thoroughly over with Peter, and Peter did try at various times to introduce the subject. But every such attempt was met by a refusal in some sort on the minister’s part. Once only he listened to his complaint of the public injustice.

“Thou can not control the wind, Peter,” he said in reply; “stoop and let it pass over thee. I believe and am sure thy hands are clear of Jan’s blood. As to how far thou art otherwise guilty concerning him, that is between God and thy conscience. But let me say, if I were asked to call thee before the kirk session on the count of unkindness and injustice, I would not feel it to be my duty to refuse to do so.” Having said this much, he put the matter out of their conversation; but still such a visible human support in his dark hour was a great comfort to Peter.

It was a long and dreary winter. It is amazing how long time can be when Sorrow counts the hours. Sameness, too, adds to grief; there was nothing to vary the days. Margaret went to bed every night full of that despairing oppression which hopes nothing from the morrow. Even when the spring came again her life had the same uniform gray tinge. Peter had his fisheries to look forward to, and by the end of May he had apparently quite recovered himself. Then he began to be a little more pleasant and talkative to his daughter. He asked himself why he should any longer let the wraith of Jan Vedder trouble his life? At the last he had gone to help him; if he were not there to be helped, that was not his fault. As for Margaret, he knew nothing positively against her. Her grief and amazement had seemed genuine at the time; very likely it was; at any rate, it was better to bury forever the memory of a man so inimical to the peace and happiness of the Faes.

The fishing season helped him to carry out this resolution. His hands were full. His store was crowded. There were a hundred things that only Peter could do for the fishers. Jan was quite forgotten in the press and hurry of a busier season than Lerwick had ever seen. Peter was again the old bustling, consequential potentate, the most popular man in the town, and the most necessary. He cared little that Tulloch still refused to meet him; he only smiled when Suneva Glumm refused to let him weigh her tea and sugar, and waited for Michael Snorro.

Perhaps Suneva’s disdain did annoy him a little. No man likes to be scorned by a good and a pretty woman. It certainly recurred to Peter’s mind more often than seemed necessary, and made him for a moment shrug his shoulders impatiently, and mutter a word or two to himself.

One lovely moonlight night, when the boats were all at sea, and the town nearly deserted, Peter took his pipe and rambled out for a walk. He was longing for some womanly sympathy, and had gone home with several little matters on his heart to talk over with Margaret. But unfortunately the child had a feverish cold, and how could she patiently listen to fishermen’s squabbles, and calculations of the various “takes,” when her boy was fretful and suffering? So Peter put on his bonnet, and with his pipe in his mouth, rambled over the moor. He had not gone far before he met Suneva Glumm. Under ordinary circumstances he would have let her pass him, but to-night he wanted to talk, and even Suneva was welcome. He suddenly determined “to have it out with her,” and without ceremony he called to her.

“Let me speak to thee, Suneva; I have something to say.”

She turned and faced him: “Well then, say it.”

“What have I done to get so much of thy ill-will? I, that have been friends with thee since I used to lift thee over the counter and give thee a sweet lozenger?”

“Thou did treat poor Jan Vedder so badly.”

“And what is Jan Vedder to thee, that thou must lift his quarrel?”

“He was my friend, then.”

“And thy lover, perhaps. I have heard that he loved thee before he ever saw my Margaret when she was at school in Edinburgh.”

“Thou hast heard lies then; but if he had loved me and if I had been his wife, Jan had been a good man this day; good and loving. Yes, indeed!”

“Art thou sure he is dead?”

“Peter Fae, if any one can answer that question, thou can; thou and thy daughter Margaret.”

“I have heard thou hast said this before now.”

“Ay, I have said it often, and I think it.”

“Now, then, listen to me, and see how thou hast done me wrong.”

Then Peter pleaded his own cause, and he pleaded it with such cleverness and eloquence that Suneva quite acquitted him.

“I believe now thou art innocent,” she answered calmly. “The minister told me so long ago. I see now that he was right.” Then she offered Peter her hand, and he felt so pleased and grateful that he walked with her all the way to the town. For Suneva had a great deal of influence over the men who visited Torr’s, and most of them did visit Torr’s. They believed all she said. They knew her warm, straightforward nature, and her great beauty gave a kind of royal assurance to her words.

Peter was therefore well pleased that he had secured her good will, and especially that he had convinced her of his entire innocence regarding Jan’s life. If the subject ever came up over the fishers’ glasses, she was a partisan worth having. He went home well satisfied with himself for the politic stroke he had made, and with the success which had attended it.

Margaret had seen her father talking and walking with Suneva, and she was very much offended at the circumstance. In her anger she made a most imprudent remark – “My mother not a year dead yet! Suneva is a bold, bad woman!”

“What art thou thinking of? Let me tell thee it was of Jan Vedder, and Jan Vedder only, that we spoke.”

Not until that moment had it struck Peter that Suneva was a widow, and he a widower. But the thought once entertained was one he was not disposed to banish. He sat still half an hour and recalled her bright eyes, and good, cheerful face, and the pleasant confidential chat they had had together. He felt comforted even in the memory of the warm grip of her hand, and her sensible, honorable opinions. Why should he not marry again? He was in the prime of life, and he was growing richer every year. The more he thought of Suneva the warmer his heart grew toward her.

He was not displeased when next day one of his old comrades told him in a pawkie, meaning way, that he had “seen him walking with Glumm’s handsome widow.” A man nearly sixty is just as ready to suppose himself fascinating as a man of twenty. Peter had his courtiers, and they soon found out that he liked to be twitted about Suneva; in a little while a marriage between the handsome widow and the rich merchant was regarded as a very probable event.

When once the thought of love and marriage has taken root in a man’s heart it grows rapidly. The sight of Suneva became daily more pleasant to Peter. Every time she came to the store he liked her better. He took care to let her see this, and he was satisfied to observe that his attentions did not prevent her visits.

In a few weeks he had quite made up his mind; he was only watching for a favorable opportunity to influence Suneva. In August, at the Fisherman’s Foy, it came. Peter was walking home one night, a little later than usual, and he met Suneva upon the moor. His face showed his satisfaction. “Long have I watched for this hour,” he said; “now thou must walk with me a little, for I have again some thing to say to thee. Where hast thou been, Suneva?”

“Well, then, I took charge of Widow Thorkel’s knitting to sell it for her. She is bedridden, thou knows. I got a good price for her, and have been to carry her the money.”

“Thou art a kind woman. Now, then, be kind to me also. I want to have thee for my wife.”

“What will thy daughter say to that? She never liked me – nor have I much liked her.”

“It will be long ere I ask my daughter if I shall do this or that. It is thee I ask. Wilt thou be my wife, Suneva?”

“It would not be a bad thing.”

“It would be a very good thing for me, and for thee also. I should have thy pleasant face, and thy good heart, and thy cheerful company at my fireside. I will be to thee a loving husband. I will give thee the house I live in, with all its plenishing, and I will settle £70 a year on thee.”

“That is but a little thing for thee to do.”

“Then I will make it a £100 a year. Now what dost thou say?”

“I will marry thee, Peter, and I will do my duty to thee, and make thee happy.” Then she put her hand in his, and he walked home with her.

Next day all Lerwick knew that Peter was going to marry Glumm’s handsome widow.