Jan Vedder's Wife

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Peter was very sulky for some days, and when at last he was ready to settle with Jan, there was a decided quarrel. Jan believed himself to be unfairly dealt with, and bitter words were spoken on both sides. In reality, Peter knew that he had been hard with his son, harder by far than he had ever intended to be; but in his heart there had sprung up one of those sudden and unreasonable dislikes which we have all experienced, and for which no explanation is possible. It was not altogether the loss of the nets – he did not know what it was – but the man he liked, and praised, and was proud of one week, he could hardly endure to see or speak to the next.

“That ends all between thee and me,” said Peter, pushing a little pile of gold toward Jan. It was a third less than Jan expected. He gave it to Margaret, and bade her “use it carefully, as he might be able to make little more until the next fishing season.”

“But thou wilt work in the store this winter?”

“That I will not. I will work for no man who cheats me of a third of my hire.”

“It is of my father thou art speaking, Jan Vedder; remember that. And Peter Fae’s daughter is thy wife, though little thou deservest her.”

“It is like enough that I am unworthy of thee; but if I had chosen a wife less excellent than thou it had perhaps been better for me.”

“And for me also.”

That was the beginning of a sad end; for Jan, though right enough at first, soon put himself in the wrong, as a man who is idle, and has a grievance, is almost sure to do. He continually talked about it. On the contrary, Peter held his tongue, and in any quarrel the man who can be silent in the end has the popular sympathy. Then, in some way or other, Peter Fae touched nearly every body in Lerwick. He gave them work, or he bought their produce. They owed him money, or they expected a favor from him. However much they sympathized with Jan, they could not afford to quarrel with Peter.

Only Michael Snorro was absolutely and purely true to him; but oh, what truth there was in Michael! Jan’s wrongs were his wrongs; Jan’s anger was but the reflection of his own.

He watched over him, he sympathized with him, he loved him entirely, with a love “wonderful, passing the love of woman.”

CHAPTER IV.

THE DESOLATED HOME

“For we two, face to face,
God knows are further parted
Than were a whole world’s space
Between.”

“Lost utterly from home and me,
Lonely, regretful and remote.”

Jan now began to hang all day about Ragon Torr’s, and to make friends with men as purposeless as himself. He drank more and more, and was the leader in all the dances and merry-makings with which Shetlanders beguile their long winter. He was very soon deep in Torr’s debt, and this circumstance carried him the next step forward on an evil road.

One night Torr introduced him to Hol Skager, a Dutch skipper, whose real cargo was a contraband one of tea, brandy, tobacco and French goods. Jan was in the very mood to join him, and Skager was glad enough of Jan. Very soon he began to be away from home for three and four weeks at a time. Peter and Margaret knew well the objects of these absences, but they would have made themselves very unpopular if they had spoken of them. Smuggling was a thing every one had a hand in; rich and poor alike had their venture, and a wise ignorance, and deaf and dumb ignoring of the fact, was a social tenet universally observed. If Jan came home and brought his wife a piece of rich silk or lace, or a gold trinket, she took it without any unpleasant curiosity. If Peter were offered a cask of French brandy at a nominal price, he never asked any embarrassing questions. Consciences tender enough toward the claims of God, evaded without a scruple the rendering of Cæsar’s dues.

So when Jan disappeared for a few weeks, and then returned with money in his pocket, and presents for his friends, he was welcomed without question. And he liked the life; liked it so well that when the next fishing season came round he refused every offer made him. He gained more with Hol Skager, and the excitement of eluding the coast guard or of giving them a good chase, suited Jan exactly. The spirit of his forefathers ruled him absolutely, and he would have fought for his cargo or gone down with the ship.

Snorro was very proud of him. The morality of Jan’s employment he never questioned, and Jan’s happy face and fine clothing gave him the greatest pleasure. He was glad that he had escaped Peter’s control; and when Jan, now and then, went to the store after it was shut, and sat an hour with him, no man in Shetland was as proud and happy as Michael Snorro. Very often Jan brought him a book, and on one occasion it was the wondrous old “Pilgrim’s Progress,” full of wood-cuts. That book was a lifelong joy to Snorro, and he gave to Jan all the thanks and the credit of it. “Jan brought him every thing pleasant he had. He was so handsome, and so clever, and so good, and yet he loved him – the poor, ignorant Snorro!” So Snorro reasoned, and accordingly he loved his friend with all his soul.

At Jan’s house many changes were taking place. In the main, Margaret had her house very much to herself. No one soiled its exquisite cleanliness. The expense of keeping it was small. She was saving money on every hand. When Jan came home with a rich present in his hand, it was easy to love so handsome and generous a man, and if Jan permitted her to love him in her own way, she was very glad to do so. The tie between man and wife is one hard to break. What tugs it will bear for years, we have all seen and wondered at; and during this interval if there were days when they were wretched, there were many others when they were very happy together. The conditions rested mainly with Margaret. When she could forget all her small ambitions and disappointments, and give to her husband the smile and kiss he still valued above every thing, then Jan was proud and happy and anxious to please her. But Margaret was moody as the skies above her, and sometimes Jan’s sunniest tempers were in themselves an offense. It is ill indeed with the man who is bound to misery by the cords of a woman’s peevish and unreasonable temper.

For a year and a half Jan remained with Hol Skager, but during this time his whole nature deteriorated. Among the Shetland fishermen mutual forbearance and mutual reliance was the rule. In position the men were nearly equal, and there was no opportunity for an overbearing spirit to exercise itself. But it was very different with Skager’s men. They were of various nationalities, and of reckless and unruly tempers. The strictest discipline was necessary, and Jan easily learned to be tyrannical and unjust, to use passionate and profane language, to drink deep, and to forget the Sabbath, a day which had been so sacred to him.

In his own home the change was equally apparent. Margaret began to tremble before the passions she evoked; and Jan to mock at the niceties that had hitherto snubbed and irritated him. Once he had been so easy to please; now all her small conciliations sometimes failed. The day had gone by for them. The more she humbled herself, the less Jan seemed to care for her complaisance. To be kind too late, to be kind when the time for kindness is passed by, that is often the greatest injury of all.

At the end of eighteen months Jan and Skager quarreled. Skager had become intimate with Peter Fae, and Peter was doubtless to blame. At any rate, Jan was sure he was, and he spent his days in morose complaining, and futile threats of vengeance – futile, because the poor man’s wrath always falls upon himself. When Peter heard them he could afford to say contemptuously – “It is well known that Jan Vedder has a long tongue and short hands;” or, “Between saying and doing the thing is a great way.”

In a few weeks even Ragon Torr got weary of Jan’s ill-temper and heroics. Besides, he was in his debt, and there seemed no prospect of speedy work for him. Upon the whole, it was a miserable winter for the Vedders. Jan made very little. Sometimes he killed a seal, or brought in a bag of birds, but his earnings were precarious, and Margaret took care that his table should be in accordance. She had money, of course, but it was her own money, and a thing with which Jan had no right. She ate her meager fare of salt fish and barley bread with a face of perfect resignation; she gave up her servant and made no complaints, and she did think it a most shameful injustice that, after all, Jan should be cross with her. It did not strike her, that good meal, even though she had procured it from her own private hoard, might have been a better thing than the most saintly patience. There is much said about the wickedness of doing evil that good may come. Alas! there is such a thing as doing good that evil may come.

One afternoon in early spring Jan saw a flock of wild swans soaring majestically on their strong wings toward a lake which was a favorite resting place with them. He took his gun and followed after. They were gathered in the very middle of the lake; his dog could not swim so far, neither could his shot reach them. It seemed as if every promise mocked him. Sulky and disappointed, he was returning home when he met the Udaller Tulloch. He was jogging along on his little rough pony, his feet raking the ground, and his prehistoric hat tied firmly on the back of his head.

But in spite of his primitive appearance he was a man of wealth and influence, the banker of the island, liked and trusted of all men – except Peter Fae. With Peter he had come often in conflict; he had superseded him in a civil office, he had spoken slightingly of some of Peter’s speculations, and, above all offenses, in a recent kirk election he had been chosen Deacon instead of Peter. They were the two rich men of Lerwick, and they were jealous and distrustful of each other.

“Jan Vedder,” said Tulloch, cheerily, “I would speak with thee; come to my house within an hour.”

It was not so fine a house as Peter’s, but Jan liked its atmosphere. Small glass barrels of brandy stood on the sideboard; there was a case of Hollands in the chimney corner; fine tobacco, bloaters, and sturgeons’ roes were in comfortable proximity. A bright fire of peats glowed on the ample hearth, and the Udaller sat eating and drinking before it. He made Jan join him, and without delay entered upon his business.

“I want to sell ‘The Solan,’ Jan. She is worth a thousand pounds for a coaster; or, if thou wishes, thou could spoil Skager’s trips with her. She is half as broad as she is long, with high bilge, and a sharp bottom; the very boat for these seas – wilt thou buy her?”

“If I had the money, nothing would be so much to my liking.”

“Well, then, thy wife brought me £50 yesterday; that makes thy account a little over £600. I will give thee a clear bill of sale and trust thee for the balance. ’Tis a great pity to see a good lad like thee going to waste. It is that.”

“If I was in thy debt, then thou would own a part of me. I like well to be my own master.”

“A skipper at sea doth what he will; and every one knows that Jan Vedder is not one that serves. Remember, thou wilt be skipper of thy – own – boat!”

Jan’s eyes flashed joyfully, but he said, “My wife may not like I should use the money for this purpose.”

“It is a new thing for a man to ask his wife if he can spend this or that, thus or so. And to what good? Margaret Vedder would speak to her father, and thou knows if Peter Fae love thee – or not.”

These words roused the worst part of Jan’s nature. He remembered, in a moment, all the envy and wonder he would cause by sailing out of harbor skipper of his own boat. It was the very temptation that was irresistible to him. He entered into Tulloch’s plan with all his heart, and before he left him he was in a mood to justify any action which would further his desire.

“Only give not thy thoughts speech, Jan,” said Tulloch at parting; “and above all things, trust not thy plans to a woman. When will thou tell me ‘yes’ or ‘no’?”

“To-morrow.”

But Jan was not the man to hold counsel with his own soul. He wanted human advice and sympathy, and he felt sure of Snorro. He went straight to him, but the store was still open, and Peter Fae was standing in the door, three of his neighbors with him. He looked at Jan scornfully and asked – “Well, how many swans did thou get?”

“I have been after a purchase, Peter Fae.”

“Good. How wilt thou pay for it, then?”

“I will take my own to pay for it.”

Peter laughed, and turning away, answered, “Why, then, do I speak to thee? Only God understands fools.”

This conversation irritated Jan far more than many an actual wrong had done. “I have indeed been a fool,” he said to Snorro, “but now I will look well to what concerns my own interest.”

Then he told Michael of Tulloch’s offer, and added, “At last, then, I have the sum of my wife’s savings, and I will show her she has been saving for a good end. What dost thou think, Snorro?”

“I think the money is thine. All thine has been hers, or she had not saved so much; all hers ought then to be thine. But it is well and right to tell her of Tulloch’s offer to thee. She may like to give thee as a gift what else thou must take without any pleasure.”

Jan laughed; it was an unpleasant laugh, and did not at all brighten his face, but he resolved to a certain extent on taking Snorro’s advice. It was quite midnight when he reached his home, but Margaret was sitting by a few red peats knitting. She was weeping, also, and her tears annoyed him.

“Thou art ever crying like a cross child,” he said. “Now what art thou crying for?”

“For thy love, my husband. If thou would care a little for me!”

“That is also what I say. If thou would care a little for me and for my well-doing! Listen, now! I have heard where I can buy a good boat for £600. Wilt thou ask thy father for so much of thy tocher? To have this boat, Margaret, would make me the happiest man in Shetland. I know that thou can manage it if thou wilt. Dear wife, do this thing for me. I ask thee with all my heart.” And he bent toward her, took the knitting away, and held her hands in his own.

Margaret dropped her eyes, and Jan watched her with a painful interest. Did she love him or her £600 better? Her face paled and flushed. She looked up quickly, and her lips parted. Jan believed that she was going to say – “I have £600, and I will gladly give it to thee.” He was ready to fold her to his breast, to love her, as he had loved her that day when he had first called her “wife.” Alas! after a slight hesitation, she dropped her pale face and answered slowly – “I will not ask my father. I might as well ask the sea for fresh water.”

Jan let her hands fall, and stood up. “I see now that all talk with thee will come to little. What thou wants, is that men should give thee all, and thou give nothing. When thou sayest, ‘thy love, husband,’ thou means ‘thy money, husband;’ and if there is no money, then there is ever sighs and tears. Many things thou hast yet to learn of a wife’s duty, and very soon I will give thee a lesson I had done well to teach thee long since.”

“I have borne much from thee, Jan, but at the next wrong thou does me, I will go back to my father. That is what I shall do.”

“We will see to that.”

“Yes, we will see!” And she rose proudly, and with flashing eyes gathered up her knitting and her wool and left the room.

The next morning Jan and Tulloch concluded their bargain. “The Solan” was put in thorough order, and loaded with a coasting cargo. It was supposed that Tulloch’s nephew would sail her, and Jan judged it wisest to show no interest in the matter. But an hour after all was ready, he drew the £600 out of Tulloch’s bank, paid it down for the boat, and sailed her out of Lerwick harbor at the noon-tide. In ten minutes afterward a score of men had called in Peter Fae’s store and told him.

He was both puzzled and annoyed. Why had Tulloch interfered with Jan unless it was for his, Peter’s, injury? From the secrecy maintained, he suspected some scheme against his interests. Snorro, on being questioned, could truthfully say that Jan had not told him he was to leave Lerwick that morning; in fact, Jan had purposely left Snorro ignorant of his movements. But the good fellow could not hide the joy he felt, and Peter looked at him wrathfully.

It was seldom Peter went to see his daughter, but that evening he made her a call. Whatever she knew she would tell him, and he did not feel as if he could rest until he got the clue to Jan’s connection with Tulloch. But when he named it to Margaret, he found she was totally ignorant of Jan’s departure. The news shocked her. Her work dropped from her hand; she was faint with fear and amazement. Jan had never before left her in anger, without a parting word or kiss. Her father’s complaints and fears about Tulloch she scarcely heeded. Jan’s behavior toward herself was the only thought in her mind. Peter learned nothing from her; but his irritation was much increased by what he considered Margaret’s unreasonable sorrow over a bad husband. He could not bear a crying woman, and his daughter’s sobs angered him.

“Come thou home to thy mother,” he said, “when thy eyes are dry; but bring no tears to my house for Jan Vedder.”

Then Margaret remembered that she had threatened Jan with this very thing. Evidently he had dared her to do it by this new neglect and unkindness. She wandered up and down the house, full of wretched fears and memories; love, anger, pride, each striving for the mastery. Perhaps the bitterest of all her thoughts toward her husband arose from the humiliating thought of “what people would say.” For Margaret was a slave to a wretched thraldom full of every possible tragedy – she would see much of her happiness or misery through the eyes of others.

She felt bitterly that night that her married life had been a failure; but failures are generally brought about by want of patience and want of faith. Margaret had never had much patience with Jan; she had lost all faith in him. “Why should she not go home as her father told her?” This question she kept asking herself. Jan had disappointed all her hopes. As for Jan’s hopes, she did not ask herself any questions about them. She looked around the handsome home she had given him; she considered the profitable business which might have been his on her father’s retirement or death; and she thought a man must be wicked who could regard lightly such blessings. As she passed a glass she gazed upon her own beauty with a mournful smile and thought anew, how unworthy of all Jan had been.

At daybreak she began to put carefully away such trifles of household decoration as she valued most. Little ornaments bought in Edinburgh, pieces of fancy work done in her school days, fine china, or glass, or napery. She had determined to lock up the house and go to her father’s until Jan returned. Then he would be obliged to come for her, and in any dispute she would at least have the benefit of a strong position. Even with this thought, full as it was of the most solemn probabilities, there came into her niggardly calculations the consideration of its economy. She would not only save all the expenses of housekeeping, but all her time could be spent in making fine knitted goods, and a great many garments might thus be prepared before the annual fair.

This train of ideas suggested her bank book. That must certainly go with her, and a faint smile crossed her face as she imagined the surprise of her father and mother at the amount it vouched for – that was, if she concluded to tell them. She went for it; of course it was gone. At first she did not realize the fact; then, as the possibility of its loss smote her, she trembled with terror, and hurriedly turned over and over the contents of the drawer. “Gone!” She said it with a quick, sharp cry, like that of a woman mortally wounded. She could find it nowhere, and after five minutes’ search, she sat down upon her bedside, and abandoned herself to agonizing grief.

Yes, it was pitiable. She had begun the book with pennies saved from sweeties and story-books, from sixpences, made by knitting through hours when she would have liked to play. The ribbons and trinkets of her girlhood and maidenhood were in it, besides many a little comfort that Jan and herself had been defrauded of. Her hens had laid for it, her geese been plucked for it, her hands had constantly toiled for it. It had been the idol upon the hearthstone to which had been offered up the happiness of her youth, and before which love lay slain.

At first its loss was all she could take in, but very quickly she began to connect the loss with Jan, and with the £600 he had asked her to get for him at their last conversation. With this conviction her tears ceased, her face grew hard and white as ice. If Jan had used her money she was sure that she would never speak to him, never see him again. At that hour she almost hated him. He was only the man who had taken her £600. She forgot that he had been her lover and her husband. As soon as she could control herself she fled to her father’s house, and kneeling down by Peter’s side sobbed out the trouble that had filled her cup to overflowing.

This was a sorrow Peter could heartily sympathize with. He shed tears of anger and mortification, as he wiped away those of his daughter. It was a great grief to him that he could not prosecute Jan for theft. But he was quite aware that the law recognized Jan’s entire right to whatever was his wife’s. Neither the father nor daughter remembered how many years Jan had respected his wife’s selfishness, and forgiven her want of confidence in him; the thing he had done was an unpardonable wrong.

Thora said very little. She might have reminded Peter that he had invested all her fortune in his business, that he always pocketed her private earnings. But to what purpose? She did not much blame Jan for taking at last, what many husbands would have taken at first, but she was angry enough at his general unkindness to Margaret. Yet it was not without many forebodings of evil she saw Peter store away in an empty barn all the pretty furniture of Margaret’s house, and put the key of the deserted house in his pocket.

“And I am so miserable!” wailed the wretched wife, morning, noon, and night. Her money and her husband supplied her with perpetual lamentations, varied only by pitiful defenses of her own conduct: “My house was ever clean and comfortable! No man’s table was better served! I was never idle! I wasted nothing! I never was angry! And yet I am robbed, and betrayed, and deserted! There never was so miserable a woman – so unjustly miserable!” etc.

“Alas! my child,” said Thora, one day, “did you then expect to drink of the well of happiness before death? This is the great saying which we all forget: There– not here —there the wicked cease from troubling; there the weary are at rest. There God has promised to wipe away all tears, but not here, Margaret, not here.”

CHAPTER V.

SHIPWRECK

“A man I am, crossed with adversity.”

“There is some soul of goodness in things evil;
Would men observingly distill it out.”

No man set more nakedly side by side the clay and spirit of his double nature than Jan Vedder. No man wished so much and willed so little. Long before he returned from his first voyage, he became sorry for the deception he had practiced upon his wife, and determined to acknowledge to her his fault, as far as he saw it to be a fault. He was so little fond of money, that it was impossible for him to understand the full extent of Margaret’s distress; but he knew, at least, that she would be deeply grieved, and he was quite willing to promise her, that as soon as The Solan was clear of debt, he would begin to repay her the money she prized so much.

Her first voyage was highly successful, and he was, as usual, sanguine beyond all reasonable probabilities; quite sure, indeed, that Tulloch and Margaret could both be easily paid off in two years. Surely two years was a very short time for a wife to trust her husband with £600. Arguing, then, from his own good intentions, and his own hopes and calculations, he had persuaded himself before he reached Lerwick again that the forced loan was really nothing to make any fuss about, that it would doubtless be a very excellent thing, and that Margaret would be sure to see it as he did.

The Solan touched Lerwick in the afternoon. Jan sent a message to Tulloch, and hastened to his home. Even at a distance the lonely air of the place struck him unpleasantly. There was no smoke from the chimneys, the windows were all closed. At first he thought “Margaret is gone for a day’s visit somewhere – it is unlucky then.” But as he reached the closed gate other changes made themselves apparent. His Newfoundland dog, that had always known his step afar off, and came bounding to meet him, did not answer his whistle. Though he called Brenda, his pet seal, repeatedly, she came not; she, that had always met him with an almost human affection. He perceived before his feet touched the threshold how it was: Margaret had gone to her father’s, or the animals and poultry would have been in the yard.

His first impulse was to follow her there and bring her home, and he felt in his pocket for the golden chain and locket he had brought her as a peace-offering. Then he reflected that by the time he could reach Peter’s house it would be the tea-hour, and he did not intend to discuss the differences between Margaret and himself in Peter’s presence. Thora’s good influence he could count upon; but he knew it would be useless either to reason with or propitiate Peter. For fully five minutes he stood at his bolted door wondering what to do. He felt his position a cruel one; just home from a prosperous voyage, and no one to say a kind word. Yes, he could go to Torr’s; he would find a welcome there. But the idea of the noisy room and inquisitive men was disagreeable to him. Snorro he could not see for some hours. He determined at last that the quiet of his own lonely home was the best place in which to consider this new phase of affairs between him and his wife, and while doing so he could make a cup of tea, and wash and refresh himself before the interview.

He unfastened the kitchen shutter and leaped in. Then the sense of his utter desolation smote him. Mechanically he walked through the despoiled, dusty, melancholy rooms. Not a stool left on which he could sit down. He laughed aloud – that wretched laugh of reckless sorrow, that is far more pitiful than weeping. Then he went to Torr’s. People had seen him on the way to his home, and no one had been kind enough to prevent his taking the useless, wretched journey. He felt deeply wounded and indignant. There were not half a dozen men or women in Lerwick whose position in regard to Jan would have excused their interference, but of that he did not think. Every man and woman knew his shame and wrong. Some one might have warned him. Torr shook his head sympathetically at Jan’s complaints, and gave him plenty of liquor, and in an hour he had forgotten his grief in a drunken stupor.

The next morning he went to Peter’s house to see his wife. Peter knew of his arrival, and he had informed himself of all that had happened in Torr’s room. Jan had, of course, spoken hastily and passionately, and had drunk deeply, and none of his faults had been kept from Margaret. She had expected him to come at once for her, to be in a passion probably, and to say some hard things, but she also had certainly thought he would say them to her, and not to strangers. Hour after hour she watched, sick with longing and fear and anger, hour after hour, until Peter came in, stern and dour, and said:

“Get thee to thy bed, Margaret. Jan Vedder has said words of thee this night that are not to be forgiven, and he is now fathoms deep in Torr’s liquor. See thou speak not with him – good nor bad,” and Peter struck the table so angrily, that both women were frightened into a silence, which he took for consent.

So when Jan asked to see his wife, Thora stood in the door, and in her sad, still way told him that Peter had left strict orders against his entering the house.

“But thou, mother, wilt ask Margaret to come out here and speak to me? Yes, thou wilt do that,” and he eagerly pressed in Thora’s hand the little present he had brought. “Give her this, and tell her I wait here for her.”

After ten minutes’ delay, Thora returned and gave him the trinket back. Margaret wanted her £600 and not a gold locket, and Jan had not even sent her a message about it. His return had brought back the memory of her loss in all its first vividness. She had had a dim hope that Jan would bring her money with him, that he had only taken it to frighten her; to lose this hope was to live over again her first keen sorrow. In this mood it was easy for her to say that she would not see him, or speak to him, or accept his gift; let him give her back her £600, that was the whole burden of her answer.