THE SINNING OF JESSIE MACLEAN

THE SINNING OF JESSIE MACLEAN

Jessie MacLean felt that their romance belonged also to her, for she had seen their first meeting. It was on a Sunday morning after service, and Jessie was returning from her walk along by Skilly’s wood. She was wondering as she stepped daintily, rustling her Sunday-best alpaca gown, if the gold chain she wore had marked her neck; and whether the gimlet-eyed Mistress MacKenty had seen it as she sat behind her in kirk. (Well, it wasn’t all gold, but, as Jessie protested defensively to herself: “Pure gold’s that soft ye have ti mix it.”)

On hot Sundays it was always a race between the sermon and the chain; about the time the minister got to the “thirdlies” and “lastlies” Jessie was in a fidget. She could wear the chain a bare hour and a half without it marking if the weather was cool; but this had been a very hot Sunday. Out of the sight of inquisitive eyes she stopped and spread her handkie between the chain and her neck. Then she turned along Skilly’s burnside intending to cross it at the stepping-stones; and it was here she came upon them. So flustered was she, that she forgot the dangling handkie, but then she might have worn ram’s horns and they would not have noticed it.

Gawky and shy, they were exchanging their first “It’s waurm the day” and “What’s yer hurry” which in Drumorty may mean: “Who is this gallant youth who stirs my bosom?” or, “Fair maid, eternity were too brief, could I but spend it gazing in your eyes.”

Jessie understood, and seeing their embarrassment, blushed in sympathy and tilted her parasol between herself and them. She had meant to cross the burn at the stepping-stones, but, her heart pleasantly aflutter with a sense of being a sharer in a secret, she kept on down the burnside until she was out of sight; and there she sat down and removed her shoes and stockings before hitching her dress to her knees and wading the burn.

Jessie’s own romance laid away in the lavender of memory, stirred again at the thought of the two. Walking home she pondered who the lad might be. He was a stranger in Drumorty. The lass was Bella Tocher, the kitchen wench at Skilly’s farm; a well-favored lass, and hard working, rosy and full-bosomed although barely sixteen.

So engrossed was she, that she went all the way home without remembering to remove the telltale handkie from her neck; and never gave it a thought, until, as she was turning in at her own door, Mistress MacKenty leaned over the gate and sweetly malicious, called, so that Jessie would know she had seen: “Ye do weel ti guard agin’ blood-poisinin’, Jessie lass.”

Next Sunday Jessie did an unheard-of thing. She stayed at home from the morning service and watched the road to Skilly’s farm to see if the lad would come back. She had fortified herself against disappointment by boiling dumplings in the broth. No matter how keen the edge of disappointment, Jessie had proved that dumplings in the broth could ease it a little. And after spending all morning at the window watching, with a bandage bound about her neck to advertise to the curious that a sore throat had kept her at home from the kirk, she was just about to turn to the dumplings for solace, when he came by whistling and heading up the road to Skilly’s.

“My certies!” she cried, pretending to herself that she was shocked at his ardor. “He’s back again, doesna gie the lassie time to draw a lanely breath.”

Feeling the need of some one to rejoice with her, she gave the cat a dumpling. It sniffed it, and showed its contempt for her frivolity by crossing to the other side of the fireplace and seating itself with its back to her. Jessie, taking this rebuff with unusual spirit, retorted: “You’re a persnickety old maid, there’s no’ a romantic hair on yer head.” And to show that she wouldn’t be brow-beaten by the cat on this joyful day, she opened the glass-door of the what-not with a loud click; and later, ate her dumplings off the best willow-pattern china.

Through that winter Jessie didn’t need the dumplings to fortify her. The lad was attentive enough. She would see the two by the hayricks, or wandering with fingers entwined by the burnside every Sunday evening. But in the spring he stopped coming. And Bella would stand for hours watching the empty road; while Jessie in an anguish of sympathy would watch both the girl and the road from her corner window.

Bella was listless and pale. There was something pathetic in the way she made no pretense of doing anything but watching. This was intolerable to Jessie who wanted the girl to save her pride, so when she would see a neighbor coming, she would whisper fiercely: “Walk along as if ye were looking for gowans, dinna let them see yer looking for the lad,” but only the muslin curtains heard Jessie’s advice. Bella, dazed with despair, was indifferent to gossip.

Then it was rumored that, “Bella Tocher’s lad had gone to Edinburgh to the soldierin’.” And after that Bella watched the road no more.

It was Mistress MacKenty who said: “I’m thinkin’ Skilly’s will be needin’ a new kitchen wench afore Whitsuntide; and there’s them that will learn that nae guid ever came o’ gallivantin’ wi’ a strange lad on the Sabbath day.” And having delivered this darkly meaning speech she pursed withered lips with vindictive relish and refused to say more, adding only: “I hae lassies o’ my ain, it ill becomes me to speak; but mark my words, there’ll be an elders’ meeting in Drumorty afore many weeks.”

Jessie understood now the pale watching face of Bella; and understood, also, the despair that made her watch for him without pretense. “Puir wee lass,” she whispered. “Watching for her man, and him awa’ to no’ come back.”

When Mistress MacKenty came in that evening to say, that: “Skilly was sendin’ the shameless limmer packin’ the morn’s mornin’,” Jessie furtively hid something white and small upon which she had been sewing. She stood up while Mistress MacKenty spoke, and no line of her figure, nor any tone of her voice, could be taken to mean that she invited Mistress MacKenty to take a chair.

“It’s a sore disgrace to the whole parish, and harder forby on Skilly himsel’ and him an elder o’ the kirk.” Mistress MacKenty’s voice was dulcet with sympathy for the poor elder. She was looking around for a seat in which to sink and continue her lamentations, when, in the chill silence of the usually sympathetic Jessie, she sensed something strange. Jessie was clasping and unclasping her hands in front of her thin waist, and her eyes were glinting. Could it be that the gentle Jessie MacLean was fighting to keep her hands from flying in the face of Mistress MacKenty? Mistress MacKenty must have shared that wild thought also, for, catching sight of Jessie, she paused and backed away, suddenly remembering that she had “a pot o’ kale on the fire,” and was gone without even closing the door as she went.

Jessie closed the door after her and bolted it, and drew down the blinds. The little bit of white sewing came out from its hiding-place. Mistress MacKenty vowed next day that Jessie’s light had burned all night but added that she didn’t know why, because; “Jessie MacLean is that secretive her window-blinds fit all the way round.”

All next morning Jessie sat by the window watching Skilly’s road, her head propped wearily on her palms, a bright red spot on the wrinkled apple of each cheek. All Drumorty was watching Skilly’s road, but not with the tender purpose that was in the heart of Jessie MacLean. Drumorty was swollen with righteous wrath. The virtue of Drumorty was outraged; and it was waiting to visit its saintly indignation on the head of “the shameless limmer.”⁠[7] Jessie shut up alone knew nothing of this.

At noon she saw Bella coming along the road toward the village street, a bundle with all her belongings slung on her arm. She would proceed in little tumbling runs, then stop and sway, gather strength again, and run a little more. Sometimes she would drop the bundle and have to get down laboriously on one knee to pick it up.

Then Jessie saw the thing that stilled her heart for a moment. As Bella turned into the street, the blinds of Mistress MacPherson’s cottage snapped down and remained, like eyelids in death. Then, down with swift vindictiveness came the blinds of the next cottage; Bella heard, and looked about her, as blinds on either side of her hurried down to their righteous window-sills. She stopped and tottered feebly, then, as if blows were showering upon her, she flung her arm across her face, and lowered her head and ran.

“Click” went the blind of Mistress MacKenty’s window as she passed; this brought Jessie to her feet with blazing eyes. Rushing out, she ran along the street after the fleeing girl, calling: “Bella—Bella Tocher.”

Thinking she was being pursued only to be taunted, Bella gathered her strength anew and ran faster. Sobs rose in Jessie’s throat as she saw her reel in her efforts to get away; and she called her name again, trying to make her voice both loud and coaxing. As Jessie caught up and touched her arm, the girl stopped and faced her panting, a driven thing, ready to fight if she must.

“Come back to my house, Bella,” Jessie urged breathlessly.

“So ye can take yer ease while ye tell me I’ve disgraced the parish o’ Drumorty?—So ye can tell me I am justly punished for my sins?” Bella’s voice rose in hysterical gasps, her white face twitched piteously.

“Na, na,” urged Jessie, speaking in soothing accents. “Come so I can show ye the wee shirts I’ve been makin’.”

It was the tone of her voice and tears on Jessie’s cheeks, not her words, that brought the answering sob in Bella’s throat and softened the defensive lines of her form.

“Come back and stay wi’ me,” Jessie’s tone was tender.

Responding to it, the tears streamed down Bella’s face, but she shook her head: “I winna stay an’ face the elders. I’ll walk till I drop first.”

“Ye’ll no’—I’ll face them for ye. Come awa’,” Jessie coaxed, then in a warning whisper: “The blinds are down; but they are peekin’ out below them.” She put an arm round the girl and, reaching out a hand for the bundle, said tenderly: “Yer nathing but a bairn yersel’—come.”

Bella relinquished the bundle to Jessie’s urging hand, and, faltering like a tired child, turned back with her along the street of drawn blinds.

2

With what terror, or with what bravery, these two met the turmoil of that night we may not tell. Nor may we echo the brave words that a gentle spinster used, to hearten an erring child in her hour of sore trial. These things are written by the angels, and only mothers may read them.

But we may look in with dawn, and see the puckered pink velvet son of Bella Tocher as he lies on Jessie’s lap screaming, for he can not see yet how near is Jessie’s lap to the tender heaven of her heart. But we can see, and we are shamed to look unbidden upon the glory of a spinster’s face, when mother-love has wakened in her breast.

3

There was defiance in Jessie’s gait as she stepped up to the entrance of Mistress MacPherson’s byre at milking time that evening. She rattled the two flagons she carried challengingly, and forestalled any comment from Mistress MacPherson about the extra flagon, by saying cheerily: “I’ll need a quart extra ilka⁠[8] day now.”

Her boldness had the effect of completely winding Mistress MacPherson, who had been waiting all day for milking time so that she could “gie Jessie MacLean a piece o’ her mind.” “Let her come creepin’ up here askin’ for milk for that hussy—” Mistress MacPherson had finished the implication with a grim-faced nod, as she discussed the “goin’s on” with Mistress MacKenty that morning.

But Jessie hadn’t “come creepin’,” and Mistress MacPherson, ready to attack, hesitated with that confusion which comes also to a dog, when it has got all ready to chase a cat that refuses to run. Jessie, palpitating with victory, airily handed over the two flagons; and Mistress MacPherson, unable to rally for the moment, took them murmuring only, “Oh, aye.”

But if it was a victory for Jessie, it only added to the virtuous indignation Drumorty felt toward Bella. Had Bella been found dying in a ditch that morning, the good women of Drumorty would have found pity for her in their hearts. But that Bella should have faced her hour with a roof over her head and a bed beneath her, and a kindly hand to meet her needs; that, in the opinion of Drumorty was nothing short of “lauding the evil-doer.”

“Revelin’ in her sins,” “Made o’ and tended, as if she were an honest woman,” these and other denunciations flew rife at mart and meeting as the weeks passed, and it was reported that “Jessie MacLean was sleepin’ on a shake-down while that limmer was lying like a queen in Jessie’s feather bed.” But that was only hearsay, for not once did Jessie let one of them pass the door, though many were the pretexts devised by Mistress MacKenty to gain admission, from the borrowing of an egg which she returned the next day (the same egg, as Jessie could prove, for did she not mark it on purpose; for what use would Mistress MacKenty be having for an egg three days before Sunday?) to the bringing of a bottle of raspberry-vinegar to see if Jessie had a corkscrew that could get the cork out.

Bella sensed it all with sullen resentment which would show in her eyes when the baby’s cries forced its existence more sharply upon her. She hated her motherhood. Motherhood, that was thrust cruelly upon her while she was still a child; motherhood, robbed of its honor and covered with shame; motherhood and its pains, stripped of the love which makes its agony a glory. This was the motherhood Bella knew, and her heart was bitter against it. She felt trapped. Perhaps the child, helpless in her arms, crying to her for food, might have saved her from this, and have roused in her girl-heart that compassion for the helpless which is mother-love. But Jessie, all eagerness to surround Bella with comfort, took the care of the baby upon herself; and as love for it fastened upon her heart, Jessie could not bear to let any hand touch it but her own. Its morning bath was a rite to be lingered over with exclamations of wonder and delight. If Jessie noticed at all that Bella did not share her ecstasy she didn’t think it strange; for Jessie had quickly ceased to think of Bella as the baby’s mother. Her feeling for Bella was in a smaller measure the same feeling she had for the baby. She felt herself mother to both of them. So while Jessie’s heart was greatened and stirred by her care of these two, Bella, robbed of the saving outlet of service, became daily more morose. The memory of the drawn blinds seared her; and she knew that the day would come soon when she must face Drumorty again. She felt little gratitude toward Jessie, and just a cool wonder that a good woman could also be kind.

The baby was about six weeks old, when Jessie came in one day with heightened color, and her step brisk with excitement. She opened her hand to disclose three gold sovereigns and a half-sovereign.

“Three pounds ten, Bella; the gentry at the big hoose hae paid their sewing bill.” Then turning swiftly to the baby she cried crooningly: “Jessie’s wee lamb will no’ need ti sleep in the clothes-basket noo; it’s a pram an’ a cradle he’ll be havin’.”

Jessie dropped the money into the toby-mug on the mantel and was preparing to gather the baby up from the clothes-basket when she heard a step on the path outside. She glanced through the window, then dodged back with the warning whisper: “It’s Skilly!”

Like a flash she clapped on her bonnet, and seized a basket and was stepping sedately out at the door just as Skilly raised his hand to knock upon it.

“My certies, Skilly,” exclaimed Jessie, shutting the door carefully behind her as she stopped facing him on the step. “Wha wid expect you to be visitin’ this time o’ day?”

“I hae come ti see Bella Tocher,” said Skilly, looking suggestively at the closed door before which Jessie stood like a sentinel.

“Weel, I’m vexed for ye;” cooed Jessie. “Bella’s oot bye somewhere, an’ I’m on my way ti the flesher’s.”

Skilly was not deceived, and indeed Jessie didn’t expect him to be. She smiled grimly as she caught his eye glancing searchingly at the window as the muslin curtains moved under Bella’s touch; but she continued to stand barring his way to the door, her arms folded militantly through the empty basket which posed like a shield upon her breast.

Skilly lengthened out his gangling inches to a greater assumption of dignity, and, ignoring Jessie’s hostility with a lofty tolerance, said in the tone he usually kept for reading the first lesson:

“As an elder o’ the kirk it is my duty to speak wi’ Bella Tocher aboot her misbegotten bairn; and wha we may name as the father o’ ’t.”

“An’ it was yer godly duty as an elder, nae doot, that made ye turn her oot to die by the roadside?” Jessie’s tone was the essence of sweetened venom.

But Skilly, not meaning to lose his unimpeachable superiority by bandying words with a woman, answered calmly:

“I hae no call to shelter a wanton and unrepentant woman; if Bella Tocher is minded to face the elders and make admission o’ her sins——”

“Her sins!” Jessie broke in. “It’s no’ her sins Drumorty is punishin’ her for; it’s the evidence, Skilly. It’s the bairn. There’s them that sit on the elders’ bench and gie judgment, that ken more o’ sin than Bella Tocher, but they dinna get found out: their siller in the collection plate blinds the minister.”

This was a home thrust, and Skilly reddened under it, but he clambered back to his official dignity by booming pontifically:

“It behooves us to deal kindly wi’ the repentant. If Bella Tocher is humble of spirit and contrite of heart, I will see mysel’ that her bairn is housed in the alms-house; an’ I’ll take her back—” Then, seeing the chance to make a bargain, Skilly dropped his oratorical tone, and added hastily: “But mind ye, no’ at the old price; I’ll gie her half o’ ’t.”

At that Jessie laughed grayly, and two red lights flashed battle from her eyes.

“Yer a sainted and godlike man, Skilly, wi’ a heart sweet wi’ charity. Now that the lass is able to work again, ye’ll put her bairn in the alms-house at nae cost to yersel’; and ye’ll let her carry swill to yer pigs at half the siller ye’d have to pay anither; it’s a forgivin’ an’ tender heart ye have—”

Skilly bridled impatiently and turned away; the woman would try the patience of a saint!

“Aye! Run, run, Skilly,” urged Jessie tauntingly. “If ye bide, I may let ye see yersel’; and the sight will make ye sick.”

It was too much! An elder of the kirk couldn’t be expected to stand it any longer. Skilly left her and stalked down the path, his back stiff as buckram.

Jessie turned back into the house all aflutter. Nature had not made her a fighter; she could not have lifted a whisper to defend herself; but accident had made her play mother and so she could fight like a tiger, although her knees might tremble for hours afterward.

“Did ye hear, Bella?” she asked the girl who sat stolidly on the bench by the window, ignoring the whimperings from the clothes-basket.

“Aye.” There was nothing in the girl’s tone to indicate her thoughts. After a moment her eyes wandered up to the toby-jug on the mantel, and she said:

“How much will the pram an’ the cradle cost?”

Jessie, with most of her attention centered on the commotion in the basket, answered:

“I can get the pram for thirty shillings; an’ I’ve been promised the use o’ Maggie Duncan’s cradle for naething—but she kens fine I’ll make her next gown on account o’ ’t.”

4

In the straggling light next morning, Jessie slipped a long thin leg out of bed, and her toes went searching with cat-like caution for a crocheted slipper; finding it, they wriggled into its woolly depth.

Jessie was making one of her countless trips to the clothes-basket by the fireside in the next room to see if all was well. She clutched her long pink flannelette night-gown to keep it from touching the floor; and was moving carefully past Bella’s bed, when its unusual flatness made her look at it again.

It was empty! Jessie hastened into the next room with fussy concern, sure that whatever Bella was doing for the baby was wrong.

But Bella wasn’t there! Her hat wasn’t hanging on the back of the door where it had hung for six weeks. Her shoes weren’t on the peat-backet⁠[9] where she had put them last night.

The baby! Jessie gave a cry that ended in a strangled sound, half laugh, half sob, as she sprang to the clothes-basket and dropped down beside it. The baby was there. Jessie’s heart resumed action again, she bent over the basket and tenderly touched the baby’s warm sleeping face; then her thoughts returned to Bella. She looked about for fresh proof that she had really gone.

Against the toby-jug a sheet of writing-paper was propped. Jessie reached for it and carried it to the window. In the graying light she peered at the words written upon it until they formed into things of meaning. And she read:

“I am going to Edinburgh. I have taken two pounds from the toby-jug; that leaves enough for the pram. It is ill done of me, but I will no stay in Drumorty. If I get a place I’ll send back the siller, and if Geordie will wed me I’ll come back for the bairn. You have been kinder to me than I am deserving, and I will no forget. You can send the bairn to the alms-house; it will be better there than with me if Geordie will no have me.”

Jessie trembled as she read. Bella had gone! And the baby was here,—was hers to keep! Joy sent her heart racing heavenward. She turned and sank to her knees beside the clothes-basket, stretching greedy arms about it and whispering passionately to the sleeping child:

“She’ll no’ come back. She’ll no’ come back;—and ye’ll be my ain, my ain wee lamb.”

Then in the flush of her riches, kneeling there in the still gray morning, she thought of Bella and her poverty. Bella, stealing out loveless in the night. Bella who had borne the suffering and shame. Bella with empty arms. And a great remorse for the greed of her own rejoicing tore at her breast, and she clasped her hands and cried in anguish:

“God be merciful to her!—And forgie me, a covetous sinner.”