Wych Hazel Part 65

Unmistakeably, by degrees, Hazel felt her pulses quickening.

There was more in this than mere banter; it was too connected and full of purpose for insanity. What was it? what dread was softly creeping towards her; and she could hear only a breaking twig or a rus.h.i.+ng leaf? She must be very wary!

'I have been riding in other directions,' she answered carelessly. 'And not leaping much at all.'

The laugh just appeared again.

'Of course I do not know, but I fancy, his fences would not be easy to get over; Dane's, I mean. He was a very difficult boy to manage. Indeed I cannot say that I ever did manage him. He would have his own way, and my father always take sides with him. So everybody. So Primrose. O, Prim won't hear me say a word against him. And I am not saying a word against him; only I was very curious to know how he would fill his new office, and how well you would like it, and how it would all work. It is quite a romance, really.'

'And it is quite easy to make out a romance where none exists,' said Miss Kennedy, in a frigid tone.

'My dear! you wouldn't say that your case is not a romance?'

said Mrs. Coles. 'I never knew one equal to it, out of books; and in them one always thinks the situation is made up. And to be sure, so is this; only Mr. Kennedy and Dane's father made it up between them. Don't you call your case a romance?'

'What part of my own case?' said the girl defiantly. If people had come to this, it was high time to stop them. 'Perhaps if you will be kind enough to speak more in detail, I may be able to put you right on several points.'

'My dear!' said Mrs. Coles, again with a surprised and protecting air, through which the amus.e.m.e.nt nevertheless shone. 'Don't you call the terms of the will romantic?'

'What will? and what terms?'--The defiance was in her eyes now.

'I cannot correct details if you keep to generals.'

'Your father's will, my dear; your father's and mother's I should say, for she added her signature and confirmation. And I'm sure _that_ was one remarkable thing. It is so uncertain how boys will grow up.'

'And the romance?' said Wych Hazel. 'Will you tell me what version of it you have heard?'

'Why, my dear, you know Dane is your guardian, don't you?'

The girl's heart gave a bound--but that could wait; just now there was other business on hand.

'Well,' she said, 'is that the opening chapter? What comes next? I cannot review in part.'

'But didn't you know that, my dear? Did they keep it from you?'

Wych Hazel laughed,--Mrs. Coles was too much a stranger to her to know how,--and took out her watch. 'I must go in ten minutes,' she said,--'and I do want to hear this "romance,"

first. One's private affairs get such fresh little touches from strange hands! Just see what a heading for your next chapter, Mrs. Coles,--"_N.B._ The heroine did not know herself."

Will it take you more than ten minutes?' she added, persuasively.

'If you didn't know, Primrose will be very angry with me,'

said the lady, not seeming terrified, by the way,--'and Dane will be fit to take my head off. I had better go away before he comes.'

'Why, he is not your guardian too, is he?' said the girl, mockingly. 'That would prove him a man of more unbounded resources than even I had reason to suppose.'

'No,' said Prudentia, 'it was the other way. I was his once, practically. Not legally of course. That was my father. But do tell me--_have_ I done something dreadful in telling you this?'

'I'll tell you things when you have told me,' said Wych Hazel.

'No cross-examination can go on from both sides at once. But I have only nine minutes now; so your part of the fun, Mrs.

Coles, will be cut short, I foresee.'--Certainly Mrs. Coles might well be puzzled. But Wych Hazel had met with her match.

'My dear,' the lady returned, 'what do you want me to say? If you know about the will--that is what I was thinking of, I don't want to say anything I should not say. I didn't know but you knew.'

'And I didn't know but you _didn't_ know,' said Miss Kennedy, feeling as nearly wild as anybody well could. 'If you do not, and I do, it is just as well, I daresay.' And she rose up and crossed the room to an open window from which she could speak to her groom, Lewis, in the distance, ordering up her horse.

Mrs. Coles had a good view of her as she went and returned, steady, erect, and swift.

'My dear,' said the lady with that same little laugh, 'I know all about it, and did twelve years ago. You have nothing to tell me--except how the plan works. About that, I confess, I was curious.'

'O I shall not tell you that, Mrs. Coles, unless I hear exactly what you suppose the plan to be. Exactness is very important in such cases. And, by-the-by, you must be the lady of whom Mr. Rollo has spoken to me several times,' said Wych Hazel, with a sudden look.

'Has he? What did he say?'

'Several things. But my horse is coming. Do you think Mr.

Rollo would really object to our discussing the "romance"

together?'

Was it cunning or instinct in Wych Hazel? Mrs. Coles answered with a significant chuckle, but added--'My dear, you know he has money enough of his own.'

'Has he?' said Hazel, seeming to feel the lava crack under her feet, and expecting every moment a hot sulphur bath.

'So of course he is not to be supposed to want any more.

Didn't you know he was rich?'

'Never thought about it, if I did.'

'No, I suppose not. But if you never thought about it, nor about him,--I declare! it _is_ hard that he should have the disposal of you and all you've got. Rich! his father was rich, and his money has been growing and growing all these years. I daresay he'll not be a bad master,--but yet, it's rather a hard case, _if_ you never thought of him.'

Wych Hazel was silent a moment, as if thinking.

'What was the exact wording of the will, Mrs. Coles? Do you remember?'

'Wording? I don't know about wording, the lawyers curl their words round so, and plait them together; but the sense I know well enough; the terms of the will. It made a great impression upon me; and then seeing Dane for so many years, and knowing all about it, I couldn't forget it. This was the way of it.

You know your father, and your mother, and Dane's father were immense friends?'

She paused, but Wych Hazel gave her no help.

'So they struck up this plan between them, when Mr. Kennedy knew he was ill and wouldn't ever be well again, and that his wife would not long outlive him. You were put under that old gentleman's guardians.h.i.+p,--I forget his name at this minute, but you know it well enough,--Mr. Falkirk! that was it. You were to be under Mr. Falkirk's guardians.h.i.+p, and Dane was to be the ward of my father; and so it was, you know. But when he arrived at the age of twenty-five, upon making certain declarations formally, before the proper persons, Dane, the will appointed, should be joint guardian with Mr. Falkirk, and look after you himself.'

Mrs. Coles paused and surveyed her auditor; indeed she had been doing that all along. And perhaps people of her sort are moved from first to last by a feeling akin to that which possessed the old Roman world, when men were put to painful deaths at public and private shows to gratify a critical curiosity which observed how they conquered pain or succ.u.mbed under it. Mrs. Coles paused.

'But I haven't told you,' she went on with a look as sharp as a needle, 'I haven't told you yet the substance of the declaration Dane was to make, to enable him to take his position. He was to declare, that it was his wish and purpose to make you his wife. Upon that understanding, with the approbation of Mr. Falkirk and my father, the thing was all to be fixed, as I told you. Then you would be between two guardians. And if you, up to the age of twenty-five, married any one else, against their joint consent, your lands and properties were to pa.s.s away from you to him, except a certain provision settled upon you for life. And,' said Mrs. Coles, with another chuckle, 'I wanted to know how it feels.'

Had an arrow or a bullet gone through her? or was it only the hot iron burning in those words? Hazel did not know. The one coherent thought in the girl's mind, was that a dying standard-bearer will sometimes bring away his colours. She brought off hers.

'I see but two mistakes,' she said, forcing herself to speak slowly, clearly. 'But I daresay either Mr. Rollo or Mr.

Falkirk can point them out, any time. I must go. Good afternoon.'

She was gone--Mrs. Coles hardly knew by which way. The next minute Dr. Maryland's study door that looked on the garden swung back, and Wych Hazel stood by his side. Outside were Lewis and Jeannie Deans. Her eyes were in a glitter,--the Doctor could see nothing else.

'Sir,' she said, laying her hand on his book in her eagerness,--'excuse me,--Is this story that Mrs. Coles tells, true?'

In utter astonishment, gentle, wondering, benignant, the Doctor looked up at her.