CHAPTER II.
WHAT COMES OF ON-DIT.
Wych Hazel had not wanted to come home. But neither did she at all wish to arouse Mr. Falkirk's suspicions by a too strenuous resistance; and besides, when he really made up his mind to a thing, she had to yield; so, with much secret trepidation, and a particularly wayward outside development, she made the journey; and late the next night after Dr. Arthur's revelations, laid her head on the pillows on her own room at Chickaree, with a strange little feeling of gladness, that half began to take the trepidation in hand. Wellit was not the end of September yet: she would have a little breathing space. And thenWych Hazel dropped asleep.
Things 'happen,' as we say, strangely sometimes. Threads which should lie smooth and straight alongside of each other and make no confusion, get all snarled, and twisted, and thrown crosswise of each other by just a little breeze of influence, or some slight impulse on one side. And so it fell next day.
Mrs. Powder, who had also been at Newport, and left it three days before Wych Hazel, had engaged her and Mr. Falkirk to lunch for this very day, the next after their arrival. That was one thread, not necessarily touching, one would say, the grand event of the day, which was Rollo's coming and visit at Chickaree. For that visit was to have been made right early in the morning, and Collingwood was ordered, and even mounted, when there came a message from the mills. Some complication or accident of business made the master's presence necessary. Rollo went to the Hollow, and stayed there till he had but just time left to get to Chickaree before luncheon. This thread was twisted.
The carriage at the door. Rollo threw himself off his horse and went in. He was too late. Just within the door he met the little lady he came to see, standing in her pretty draperies of mantle and veil, ready for her drive; and Mr. Falkirk was behind her.
'O Mr. Rollo!' she said (fortified with this last fact) 'you have come for lunch!'
'Have I?' said he, as he took her hand in the old-fashioned way. 'I see I shall not get it.'
'Will getting it to-morrow help you to dispense with it to-day? We are engaged at Mrs. Powder's. You see I must go.'
'I see you must go. I have been delayed.'
Mr. Falkirk, according to his accustomed tactics, passed out upon the veranda after giving his own greeting, leaving the others alone. Rollo had come with a face flushed with pleasure and riding; now a certain shade fell upon it; his brow grew grave, as if with sudden thought.
'I will not detain you,' he said, after seeing that Mr. Falkirk was at a safe distance; 'only let me ask one question. Arthur Maryland says he saw you waltzing with that English Crofton. I know it is not true; but tell me so, that I may contradict him. He was mistaken.'
'Dr. Arthur! was he there?' voice and face too shewed a sudden check.
'But he did not see that?' said Rollo, with eyes which seemed as if they would deny the fact by sheer force of will.
Her eyes had no more than glanced at him hitherto, shyly withholding themselves. But now they looked full into his face, using the old, wistful, girlish right of search; watching him as keenly as sometimes he watched her. She answered gravely:
'How could Dr. Arthur be mistaken in what he says he saw?'
'Is it true?' came with an astonished, fiery glance of the gray eyes.
She draw herself up a little, stepping back.
'It is truesince he says sothat he saw me among the rest.'
It is not often that we see a man lose colour from intense feeling. Wych Hazel's eyes saw it now. Rollo stood still before her, quite still, for a space of time that neither could measure, growing very pale, while at the same time the lines on lip and brow gradually took a firmer and firmer set. Motionless as an iron statue, and assuming more and more the fixedness of one, he stood, while minute after minute slipped by. To Wych Hazel the time probably seemed measureless and endless; while to Rollo, in the struggle and tumultuous whirl of feeling, it was only a single sharp point of existence. He stood with his eyes cast down; and without raising them, without uttering another syllable, for which I suppose he had not self-control, at last he bowed gravely and low, and turned away. In another minute, the bay horse and his rider went past the door and were gone.
On her part, Wych Hazel had stood waiting, expecting him to speak, scanning his face with eager scrutiny. Then, with a grave shadow of disappointment upon her own, looked down again, nerving herself for the words of anger which must follow such a look. But when he turned, she raised her head quickly and looked after him, following with her eyes as long as eyes could follow, listening as long as ears could hearthen drew her veil over her face and went down and entered the carriage. Answering, somehow, Mr. Falkirk's words; and, somehow, taking her part in Mrs. Powder's festivities.
O the interminable length of those bridges from life-point to life- point, over which we must sometimes pass at a foot-pace! Is anything more intolerable than the monotonous tramp, tramp, of the meaningless steps? Is anything more sickening than the easy sway of the bridge, which seems to make the whole world reel, while in truth it is only ourselves? If Wych Hazel had been asked afterwards who was at Mrs. Powder's, and what was said, and when she came home, she could not have told a word. She came home with a scarlet spot on either cheek, burning brighter and brighter. They were very beautiful, people said.
But to-morrow he would come, when his anger was cooled down. What if he did?for pain this time had used a trident. He had doubted her. Then he could doubt her! Then, he never could trust. And what was anything after that? Not her discretion merely, as before; not her obedience; but her word! Well, he would come, and she would tell himthat would be one little shred of comfort, at least. But he had looked at her so! and thenhe had turned his eyes away. And no matter what she told him, or what he might believe then, that look had gone down to the depths of her heart. He had doubted her!
Well, the night wore away, somehow, between bitter waking pain and snatches of exhausted sleep; and then the morningas mornings sometimes willseemed to speak comfort. He would come, and she would tell him.
But he did not come. And one day followed another, and still there came not even a message; and Wych Hazel waited. No one guessed how little she eat in those days, no one guessed how little she slept; the one thing she knew of herself was, that no earthly temptation could have made her leave the house for five minutes. She rose up earlyfor he might come then; and she sat up till impossible hours, lest they might be the only ones left free by business. But under all this watching, the keen, three-pointed pain never relaxed its pressure. What was the use of anything, after that? and yet she longed for his coming with an intensity that could not be measured.
Earlier in the year,certainly before his declaration,she would not have waited so long, without taking the matter into her own hands and writing. But the twenty-fifth was close at hand; how could she do anything to bring herself to his notice, or call him to her side? And he was almost a stranger now; she had seen him but once since near a year ago. And on the twenty-fifth, at least, she must see him. Alas! what could she say to him then? unless that. But she could not think of it now. Her mind clasped hold of just one thought: he will come then. 'He wants me to understand how angry he is,' thought Hazel to herself as the tenth day crept slowly by. 'Does he think I am made of iron, like himself, I wonder?'
And so we judge and misjudge each other, the best of us; and how can we help it? Misjudgments will be, must be; the only thing left to human finiteness and short-sightedness is frank dealing. There is one possible remedy in that.
Rollo did not come to Chickaree, and he did not write. How long Wych could have borne to wait without herself writing, to clear herself, it is difficult to say. A week passed, the second week was in progress, the twenty-fifth was not more than a week off, when Mr. Falkirk announced at dinner one day that Rollo was just setting off upon a journey.
'He's going to see some great manufacturing establishment in the northeast somewhere, and can't attend to my business, he tells me, before the fifth or sixth of next month; he hopes to be back by that time.'
Mr. Falkirk thought the non-intercourse between the Hollow and Chickaree a very significant fact; but it was not his plan to annoy his ward by seeming to see anything it was not necessary he should see. It cannot be said that he was quite satisfied with the condition of things, indeed; however, he knew it was hopeless to attack Wych Hazel in the hope of getting information; and with what patience he might, he waited too; the third in that unrestful attitude.
With that strange double life which she had been leading of late, Wych Hazel heard Mr. Falkirk's announcement and poured out his 'after-dinner coffee' with a steady hand. Then asked when Mr. Rollo was to go. He had gone already, that very day. And till when must this other business wait? Till the second week in October. Then she knew that he had thrown her off. No other earthly thing would have kept him away on the twenty-fifth, without even a word. Could he have done it, unless his liking for her had changed? Would he have done it, caring for her asshe thought he had cared a year ago? With these questions beating back and forth in her mind,so she went though the rest of the day. Receiving visiters, giving Mr. Falkirk his tea, sitting with him through the evening; until, at last, it was done and he had gone, and she could be alone. It never even crossed her mind to go to bed that night.
Whatever the new day may do with things that are sure, it is yet rather gentle with uncertainties; making fair little suggestions, and giving stray touches of light, in a way that is altogether hopeful and beguiling. And so, when that weary moonlight night had spent its glitter, and the tender dawn came up, Hazel breathed free over a new thought. Mr. Falkirk might be mistaken! His own business might fill Mr. Rollo's hands until the second week in October, that word proved nothing at all about his staying away. She would wait and see. No use in trusting people just while you can keep watch. And so, though the secret pain at her heart did never disappear, and though at best her next meeting with Mr. Rollo could not be very pleasant, still Hazel did hold up her head, and hope, and wait, with a woman's ready faith, and a courage that died out in the twilight and revived in the dawn, and kept her in a fever of suspense and expectation. It wearied her so unspeakably, in the long hours of practical daylight and unmanageable night, that sometimes she could hardly bear it. The world seemed to turn round till she could not catch her thoughts; and nerves overstrung and on the watch, made her start and grow pale with the commonest little sounds of every day and every night.
She had never had many people to love; she had never (before) loved anybody very much; and the truth and dignity which had kept her from all forms of love-trifling, so kept the hidden treasures of her heart all sparkling with their own freshness. They had never been passed about from hand to hand; no weather-stains, no worn-out impressions were there. What the amount might be, Wych Hazel had never guessed until in these dark days she began to tell it over; making herself feel so poor! For, after all, what is the use of a treasure which nobody wants?
Not the least among her troubles was the painful hiding them all. She must laugh and talk and entertain Mr. Falkirk; she must guard her face when the mail-bag came in, and steady the little hand stretched out for her letters; must meet and turn off all Mrs. Bywank's looks and words; must dress and go out, and dress and receive people at home. Ah, how hard it was!and no one to whom she could speak, no lap where she could lay down her head, and pour out her sorrows.
Slowly, as the days went by, and hope grew fainter, and the dawn turned cold, there grew up in Wych Hazel's mind an intense longing to lay hold of something that was still; something that would stand; something beyond the wind and above the waves; and slowly, gradually, the words she had read to Gyda came back, and made themselves a power in her mind:
"I will be with him in trouble."
Oh for some one to be with her! Oh for something she could grasp, and stop this endless swaying and rocking and trembling of all things else! And then, following close, came other words, more lately learned. Not now read over, with those pencil marks beside them; but read often enough before, happily, to have been learned by heart; and now passing and re-passing in unceasing procession before her thoughts.
"For the love of Christ constraineth us."
The love that could be counted on; the Presence that was sure!
And so, reaching her hands out blindly through the dark, the girl did now and then lay hold of the Eternal strength, and for a while sometimes found rest. But there came other days and hours when she seemed to be clinging to she hardly knew what, with the full rush and sweeping of the tide around her; conscious only that she was not quite swept away; until when at last the twenty-third was past, and three days of grace had followed suit, Hazel rose up one morning with this one thought: if she did not see somebody to speak to, she should die.