The Gold of Chickaree Part 5

'Yes,' she said, trying to get ready to get up from her chair. He sat looking at her, then touched again the wet hair. What was he thinking about?

'It seems to me,' he said slowly, 'you must have some of Gyda's porridge before you go.'

'Oh, no!' she said with some eagerness. 'I could not! Just let me go?' and she rose up, steadying herself with one hand upon the chair-back. Rollo rose too, but it was to take her in his arms.

'The carriage is not here,' he said, looking at her and noting how well she needed the support he gave.

'Not just here?Reo is waiting,' Hazel answered, flus.h.i.+ng and drooping her head, and feeling as if every minute took her more and more out of her own reach.

'Where is he waiting?'

'Never mind?Where I left him. O Mr. Rollo! let me go!?'

'But you see I must know, if I am to fetch him. Where is he, Wych?'

'At the foot of the hill.'?No use! She could not debate matters, but her head bent lower.

'Reo was not at the foot of the hill when I came.'

'I mean?the other hill.'

'What other hill?'

'Oh!'?she said deprecatingly; then went straight through. 'I came the other way.'

'I don't know but one way,' he answered half laughing.

'Well?I do.'

'You will have to teach me. But something else must be done first.

Come here and sit down again. You can hardly stand. You must rest and have a cup of coffee before I let you go anywhere. What sort of guardians.h.i.+p do you think you have come into?' he said very gently.

He put Wych Hazel in her chair, and then stooped down upon the hearth to lay brands together and coax up the decayed fire. Having made it burn, he turned and took an observation of her face. She had given one eager look after him as he turned away, but now was not looking, apparently, at anything, unless at some hidden point which she was trying to master; for her breath came a little quick, and her hands held each other tight; she was not even leaning back in her chair. And as to resting her head on her hands, Hazel would as soon have dared do anything. Well she knew, that with even that slight veil between her and the outer world, the last remnant of self-command would go. No, she must face it out, somehow, and drink the coffee, and wait. If only Gyda would not come in! And what would she say when she did??'and I could not stop her now,' thought Hazel to herself, 'If I say three words about anything!'?She pa.s.sed her hands over her eyes with a quick gesture, then put them down and held them tight. Could she run away? No, she was not strong enough, if she had the chance. And to be overtaken and brought back!?she had tried that once. And all the while, as she sat thinking, these surges of repressed sorrow and joy and everything else that had filled her heart for the last month and the last hour, seemed to be just rolling nearer and nearer, gathering up their force as she lost hers; and how she was to stop them Hazel did not know. Only?she must not break down there. Not before him. But the colour left her face again in the struggle.

Rollo needed very small observation to move him to action. The first point was to bring up to the hearth a large wooden chair, half settee, with arms of very ample proportions; looking as if anybody less than a burly old s.h.i.+p-captain or fat landlady would be quite lost and cast away in it. This chair Rollo proceeded to line and partially fill with cus.h.i.+ons? from whence obtained, was best known to himself; making sundry journeys into an inner room; from which finally he brought a great soft gray shawl, looking suspiciously like a travelling plaid, and laid it over the chair, cus.h.i.+ons and all. Taking Wych Hazel's hands then, he softly transferred her from her own chair to this, and placed a cus.h.i.+on under her feet. Then considered her with a grave face and eyes from which no one of average self-confidence would have hoped to conceal anything.

'Where is the carriage?' said he, taking one of the little hands in his own.

'Just?in the cross-road.'

'What cross-road? Didn't you come through the Hollow?'

'No.'?The word just audible.

He was silent half a minute, considering this statement.

'How did you get here?'

'Over the hill.' Hazel was watching herself jealously, fending off, as it were, the very tones of his voice. But the next step it was hard to fend off. Guessing perhaps part, and with his quick eyes seeing part, Rollo for a few minutes said nothing at all. But his lips came upon Wych Hazel's face with a recognition of what she did not want recognized, and an answering of it, touched and tender and sorrowful, as if he would have kissed it out of existence. 'My little Hazel!' he said at last; and that was all.

The girl struggled hard with herself to bear it. She had ventured that one look as he went to the fire, but had known instantly that she must not risk another; and then, somehow, she had controlled her voice to answer his questions, and had nerved her face when he placed her in the cus.h.i.+oned chair. But if he had turned her defences!?and, with that, Hazel gave way. She caught her hand from him, and turning half round laid her head and hands upon the chair, and let the flood come she had kept back so bravely.

Sobbing, as perhaps it had never entered his mind that anybody could sob; her head bent as if one wave after another was going right over it. A spring freshet after the winter frost, telling a little what the ice had been.

Rollo's life had been a good deal of himself alone. Prim was all the sister he had ever known, and nearly all the mother too; unless Gyda might have the better claim to that t.i.tle. All the readier, perhaps, he was able to deal with this burst of thoroughly natural pa.s.sion, thoroughly womanish as it also was. His point of view had not been spoiled by feminine pettinesses. He took this paroxysm of what it was; something that must in the first instance have its way and work its own relief. He did not speak to Hazel at first, nor attempt to check the outflow of feeling which he contemplated with a very grave brow. Indeed for a minute or two he left the room and went out to speak to Gyda. Coming back, he remained quite silent and still until the first violence of tears had spent itself; then he sat down by Wych Hazel's side and began a series of mute testimonials that he was there, and that he had entered upon his life-long right to share and soothe whatever troubles concerned her. His hand upon her hand, or upon her hair, or on her cheek; and then her name half-whispered in her ear in a grieved tone of voice.

'I did not mean?' she said at last, trying for words. 'O you should have let me go!?I knew, I knew!'??

Precisely what, Hazel dared not think; but perhaps, the idea that he was learning anything about her, was as good a tonic as she could have had just then. She came back to her quiet bearing very fast, pus.h.i.+ng her other self out of sight, locking it up and sealing it down, and setting her little foot upon it with extraordinary vehemence of purpose. Rollo did nothing to hinder this operation.

Indeed he rather left her to herself, while he as usual made himself busy in helping Gyda, who came in to get her table ready. Rollo drew the table up into Wych Hazel's neighbourhood, and when it was set, took upon himself the oversight of Gyda's pot of coffee, which was on the coals before the fire. He seemed to be quite at home in the business; and smiling up at Wych Hazel as he stooped to his cookery, asked her "if she liked the smell of coffee?"

'Yes, I think so,' she answered, not too sure of anything in the world just then.

'Never smelt it before, perhaps?'

The lips gave way, but the smile so nearly turned into trembling, that Hazel checked them both together.

'I don't believe you know how to make it.'

'Well?' said Hazel somewhat vaguely, from under her shadowing hands.

'That's a gentle confession of ignorance. Here comes Gyda, and porridge. What else is to bring, Gyda?'

He went off, and came back in another minute with his hands full.

Porridge and flad-brod and cheese and cream and broiled fish were set on the table; the coffee was at the fire. Rollo stood a moment surveying things, the old woman by the table, the little woman in the chair.

'You may kiss her hand, Gyda,' he said, in a tone that implied everything.

Hazel received this announcement and its consequences with a great flush. Only, with the way she had of putting some pretty grace into the most disturbing things, the little fingers locked themselves round Gyda's furtively, for a second, so giving the recognition which she could not speak. And Gyda was too gently wise to say a word. After that, both combined to wait upon Hazel, though Gyda did not get a chance to do much. And Hazel tried hard to obey injunctions and eat porridge, princ.i.p.ally because it gave her something to do; but her performance was unsatisfactory, except in the matter of coffee, which she drank rather eagerly.

'Now,' said Rollo, 'tell me where to find Reo.'

'Where?'?with a swift up-look, almost too swift to see,?'why!'?

And then Hazel remembered to her confusion, that she did not know. 'I?I suppose?he would have brought me to the nearest point. Of course.'

As no doubt Reo would, if he had known where she was going!

_That_ thought confronted her next; and with a dim consciousness of having stopped the carriage at a venture, for fear he _should_ know, Hazel began again:

'At least,'??. But there was no going on from that point. 'Is it very far along the foot of the hill?' she ventured, without any look this time.

'I should say,' returned Rollo gravely, 'it might be about some five miles.'

Hazel leaned her head on her hand and tried to recollect,?and nothing stood out from all that morning's work but the pain and the difficulty and the fatigue.

He sat down and took the little hand again.

'Which way did you come over the hill, Wych?'

'I do not know.'?If it must come, it must!?'I was thinking only of getting up; and you know there are not many landmarks. At least, I do not remember any.'