Wych Hazel Part 14

'Yes, I think so--always,--people who _cannot_ in the impossible sense. Not those who don't know or wont try. But my words did not mean just that. I should have said, help _it_--help being in difficulties.'

'I believe people can get out of difficulties,' said Rollo.

'What was the matter with these?'

'O the difficulties were piled on their heads by other people.

Lucia was a peasant, but she was "si bella" that one of the grandees wanted to get her away from Renzo.'

'I don't see the difficulties yet. What next?'

'No, of course you don't!' said Wych, warming in defense of her book. 'But if some Don Rodrigo forbade somebody to marry _you_--and then sent a party to run away with your bride--so that she had to go into a convent and you wander round the world in ill humour--I daresay your clearness of vision would improve.'

'I dare say it would,' said Rollo, pa.s.sing a hand over his eyes,--'I think it would have to grow worse before all those events could happen! But on the highest round of that ladder of impossibilities, I think I should see my way into the convent,--and escape the ill humour.'

'But Lucia would not be shut up from you, but from the grandee. It would only make matters worse to bring her out.'

'Not for me,' said Rollo. 'It might for the book, because, as you say, then the interest would be gone. Do you think the people in a book are real people?--while you are reading it?'

'Not quite--they might have been real. I don't feel just as if I should if I knew they were.'

'In that case the interest would be less?' he said, with a laughing look.

'Yes--or at least different. There are so many things to qualify your interest in real living people.'

'Yes. For instance in real life the people who cannot help being in difficulties never interest me as much as the people who get out of them; and so I think most novels are stupid, because the men and women are all real to me. There!' he said, pulling up as they reached the top of an ascent, 'there are no difficulties in your way here. What do you think of that?'

The hill-top gave a wide view over a rich, cultivated, inhabited country; its beauty was in the wide, generous eye- view and the painter's colours that decked it; for which, broken ground in front and distant low hills gave play to the slant sunbeams. Warm, rich, inviting, looked every inch of those wide-spread square miles.

'Do you know where you are?' said he in an enjoying tone.

'I suppose near home,--but it's not familiar yet.'

'No, you are some miles from home. Over there to the west, lies Dr. Maryland's--but you can't see it in this light. It's two miles away. Do you see, further to the north, standing high on a hill, a white house-front that catches the sun?'

'Yes.'

'Mme. Lasalle's, Moscheloo. It's a pretty place--nothing like Chickaree. When we reach the next turning you will catch a glimpse of Crocus in the other direction--do you know what Crocus is?'

'O yes, the village. Our house was brown, I remember that,--and as you go up the hill Mr. Falkirk's cottage is just by the roadside. Did you tell them to leave Mrs. Saddler there?'

'She will tell them herself, I fancy. Crocus is the place where you will be expected to buy sugar and spice. It is some four miles from Chickaree on that side, and we are about five miles from it on this;' and as he spoke he set the horses in motion. 'I sent on a rescript to Mrs. Byw.a.n.k, bidding her on her peril to be in order to receive you this evening. Mrs.

Byw.a.n.k and I are old acquaintances,' he said, looking at Wych Hazel.

'Dear Mrs. Byw.a.n.k! how good she used to be. I haven't seen her but once since I left home. I'm sure you have a great many worse acquaintances, Mr. Rollo.'

'I am at a loss to understand how you can be sure of that. But I have some better.--Miss Kennedy, I want you to give me a boon. Say you will do it.'

'I'll hear it first.'

'Will you? that's fair, I suppose; but if we were better friends, I should not be satisfied without a blank check put into my hands for me to fill up. However,--as I am not to have that honour on the present occasion I will explain. Let me be the one to introduce you, some day, to one of your neighbours, whom you do not remember, because she came here since you went away. Will you?'

'Why yes, of course, if you wish it--only I will not be responsible for any accidental introduction that may take place first.'

'I will,' said Rollo. 'Then it is a bargain? I shall ask half a day's excursion for it.'

'That is as much of a supplement as a woman's postscript, Mr.

Rollo. However, I suppose it is safe to let you ask what you like.'

'You give it to me?'

'Maybe.'

'Then it is a bargain,' said he, smiling. 'Here is my hand upon it.'

She laughed, looked round at him rather wonderingly, but gave her hand, remarking:

'But you know I have the right to change my mind three times.'

There is a curious language in the touch of hands, saying often inexplicably what the coa.r.s.er medium of words would be powerless to say; revealing things not meant to be discovered; and also conveying sweeter, finer, more intimate touches of feeling and mood than tongue could tell if it tried. Wych Hazel remembered this clasp of her hand, and felt it as often as she remembered it. There was nothing sentimental; it was only a frank clasp, in which her hand for a moment was not her own; and though the clasp did not linger, for that second's continuance it gave her an indescribable impression, she could hardly have told of what. It was not merely the gentleness; she could not separate from that the notion of possession, and of both as being in the mind, to which the hand was an index.

But such a thought pa.s.ses as it comes. Something else in those five minutes brought the colour flitting about her face, coming and going as if ashamed of itself; but with it all she was intensely amused; _she_ was not sentimental, nor even serious, and the girlish light heart danced a _pas seul_ to such a medley of tunes that it was a wonder how she could keep step with them all.

'What do you expect to see at Chickaree?'

'Birds, trees, and horses, and--Mr. Falkirk, didn't you say there would be cats?'

'Let him alone--he is deep in your book,' said Rollo, as Mr.

Falkirk made some astonished response. "I meant, what do you remember of the place? we are almost at the gate.'

'I'll tell you--nothing yet. Ah!'--

Through some lapse in the dense woodland there gleamed upon them as they swept on, the top of an old tower where the sunbeams lay at rest; and from the top, its white staff glittering with light, floated the heavy folds of a deep blue flag, not at rest there, but curling and waving and shaking out their white device, which was however too far off to be distinguished. She had said she would tell him, but she never spoke; after that one little cry, so full of tears and laughter, he heard nothing but one or two sobs, low and choked down. Now the lodge, nestling like an acorn under a great oak tree, came in sight first, then the ma.s.sive piers of the gate.

The gate was wide open, but while the little undergrowth of children started up and took possession of window and door and roadside, the gate was held by the head of the house, a st.u.r.dy, middle aged American. Wych Hazel had leaned out, watching the children; but as the carriage turned through the gateway, and she saw this man, standing there uncovered, caught the working of his brown weatherbeaten face, she bowed her head indeed, in answer to his low salutation, but then dropped her face in her hands in a perfect pa.s.sion of weeping.

It came and went like a Summer storm, and again she was looking intently. Now past Mr. Falkirk's white domicile, where her glittering eyes flashed round upon him the "welcome home"

which her lips spoke but unsteadily,--then on, on, up the hill, the thick trees hiding the sunset and brus.h.i.+ng the carriage with leafy hands,--it seemed to Mr. Rollo that still as the very fingers of his companion were, he could almost feel the bound of her spirit. Then out on a little platform of the road--and there, he did not know why she leaned forward so eagerly, till he saw across the dell the s.h.i.+ning of white marble.

He watched her, but drove on without making the least call upon her attention. The views opened and softened as they drew near the house; the trees here had been more thinned out, and were by consequence larger; the carriage pa.s.sed from one great shadow to another, with the thrushes ringing out their clear music and the wild roses breathing upon the evening air. From out the forest came wafts of dark dewy coolness, overhead the clouds revelled in splendour. Up still the horses went, ever ascending, but slowly, for the ascent was steep. The delay, the length of the drive tired her,--she sat up again--she had been quietly leaning back; once or twice her hand went up with a quick movement to drive back the feeling that was pa.s.sing limits; then gaining level ground once more, the horses sprang forward, and in the failing twilight they swept round before the house. Except the tower, it was but two stories high, the front stretching along, with wide low steps running from end to end. In unmatched glee Dingee stood on the carriage way showing his teeth,--on the steps, striving in vain to clear her eyes so that she might see, was Mrs. Byw.a.n.k; her kindly figure, which each succeeding year had gently developed, robed in her state dress of black silk.

Taking advantage of her outside position,--regardless of steps as of wheels,--Wych Hazel vanished from the carriage, it was hard to say how. As difficult as it would have been to guess by what witchcraft a person or Mr. Byw.a.n.k's proportions could be spirited through the doorway--out of sight--in a twinkling of time; yet it was done, and the steps were empty.

The hill at Chickaree was steepest on the side towards the west, and down that slope an opening had been cut through the trees--a sort of pathway for the sunbeams. The direct rays were gone, and only the warm sky glow brightened the hall door, when the young mistress of the place once more appeared. She stood still a moment and went back again; and then came Dingee.

'Miss Hazel say, sar, room's ready and supper won't be long.

Whar Ma.s.s Rollo?'

'I suppose he'll be here directly.'

Mr. Falkirk did not go into the house immediately; he stood with folded arms waiting, or watching the fading red glow of the western sky. In about ten minutes the tramp of a horse's feet heralded the coming of Mr. Rollo, who appeared from the corner or the house, mounted on an old grey cob, who switched his tail and moved his ears as if he thought going out at that time of day a peculiar proceeding. Dingee staid the rider with the delivery of his young lady's message.

'I am afraid supper's more than ready somewhere else. I can't stay, my friend--my thanks to the lady.' And letting fall on the little dark figure who stood at his stirrup, a gold piece and a smile, Rollo pa.s.sed him, bent a moment to speak to Mr.