CHAPTER III.
CROSS THREADS.
And in all the world there was but one person to whom she could speak, for but one had guessed her secret; even Gyda. It seemed to the girl afterwards as if at this time again her mother's prayers must have been around her; so clear and swift and instinctive were her decisions, in the chaos of all other things. No danger now of meeting any one at the cottage. But how to get there? Not through Morton Hollow, not on Jeannie Deans,oh no, oh no! If she went, she must go by that other almost impossible way, which was not a way. She would drive to the foot of the hill, and leave the carriage there, and not take Lewis to see where she went.
How she did it, Hazel never remembered afterwards. She left the carriage with a cheery word to Reo, and then set her face to the hill; the little feet toiling on with swift eagerness through briers and over stones, finding her way she knew not how; conscious only that she did not feel the ground under her feet, but seemed to be walking on nothing, so that she had every now and then a sort of fear of pitching forward. She had set out in good season, but it was past midday when she stood before the cottage. If she knocked as no other hand had ever knocked there; if her face at the opening door startled Gyda beyond words; of this, too, the girl knew nothing. For with the first sight of Gyda, there came such a surge of the sorrows in which she was plunged, that Hazel stepped one step within the door and dropped all unconscious at the old Norsewoman's feet.
Gyda was quite unable to lift her, light as the burden would have been; but what she could she was prompt and skilful to do. She brought cushions to put under Wych Hazel's head, applied cold water and hartshorn; for Gyda was too much in request as a village nurse and doctor to be unsupplied with simple remedies. With tender care she used what she had, till the girl opened her eyes and found Gyda's brown face hovering over her. Even then the old woman said not a word. She waited till Wych Hazel's senses were clear, and the young lady had roused herself up to a sitting position on the floor. Gyda's eyes were too keen not to see that the mind was more disturbed than the body.
'My little lady,' she said wistfully, 'what ails thee?'
Hazel passed her hands over her face, and tried to collect her thoughts.
'I am a great deal of trouble,'she said slowly; for the touch of the wet hair was suggestive, and it seemed to her just then that she was nothing but trouble to anybody.
'And what is it that is troubling thee?' said Gyda, stooping down with her hand on Wych Hazel's shoulder, the wrinkled, sweet old face looking earnestly for the answer.
'How can you set things right?' said Hazel, with her usual inroad to the midst of the case. 'How can you set them right, when you do not know where they are wrong?'
'Will my lady tell me what is wrong?' said the old woman, probably judging this statement of the position too vague to be acted upon. 'But come and sit down, and see the fire, and get comfortable; and tell me; and then we'll know.'
Wych Hazel rose and came to the fire as she was bid, and looked at it, seeing nothing; but her next words touched another point.
'Why do such things come upon people?' she said.
The old Norsewoman stood beside her, watching with all the wisdom of her loving, wise heart to see where the hurt was and what the medicine must be. She put her hand again upon Wych Hazel's shoulder as she looked.
'What has come?' she said. 'It's notmy lad?' she added, with evidently a sudden startle of apprehension.
'He is away, you know,' said Hazel, with an immediate reserve of voice. 'I know nothing of him.'
'What has come to my lad's lady?'
A quick spasm of pain passed over the face she was watching.
'Hush!' the girl said under her breadth. 'I am not that.'
'Then something wants to be set right,' said the old woman quietly.
'What is it, dear? Tell me, and the Lord will shew us how to do.'
'If He cared, he would have hindered,' said Hazel drearily.
'He doesn't hinder, sometimes, to shew us that he cares,' said Gyda. 'You may not question his love, dear; you'll be sure to get wrong if you do.' And then bending nearer, so as to look close in the girl's face, with her little black eyes shining both keen and tender, she repeated, 'My lad's lady, what is it? I am his servant, and so I am her servant.'
If anything could have broken down the fierce self-control in which Hazel had been entrenched for the last ten days, it was perhaps the repetition of those words. But tears were biding their time; none had come, none could come yet. Only her lips trembled.
'Please, please!' she said, raising her hand in mute pleading. Then adding, in a tone that went to Gyda's heart, 'He has doubted my word. There is nothing to be done.'
'My lad? Olaf?'
'Yes.'
'It seems ye've doubted him. Is that it?'
'His truth? Never.'
'Nein, not his truth. But you have doubted him, yet. What cause had he to doubt your word?'
'Appearances. They were all against me. But there is no use in trusting, unless you trust.'
'Has Olaf done you wrong, you think, and no cause?'
'I did not come to complain of him,' said the girl quickly. 'ButI had nobody to speak toand I wasdying by inches.'
'Suppose you complain, dear,' said the old woman, with a smile which was anything but unsympathetic. 'Complain, and make the worst of it; then we will know how to begin. Say all he has done, as bad as it is, and we will see what it means, maybe.'
The wistful eyes looked up at her, then down again. She answered softly:
'He thought, he had reason to think, that I had broken my promise.
And he did not wait, nor try, for an explanation. That is one thing.'
'How could he have reason to think that, my lady?'
'Because of something I could not help,' said Hazel. 'You know that can be,' she added with an appealing look, as if to see whether Gyda doubted her too.
'Did you speak to him?'
'He gave me no chance. I have not seen him sincesincehe looked at me so,' said Hazel.
'Maybe he had his own part to bear,' said the old woman. 'But Olaf will be back again in a few days.'
'Yes,'said the girl slowly,'that makes no difference. He has given me up.'
'Love doesn't give up,' said Gyda. 'He asked me, a few days ago, to pray for him, that he might be strong to do right. I wot, it'll be an easier part then he thought of!'
But the words touched a sore spot. 'No,' the girl thought to herself. 'Love does not give up!' She sat very white and still. Then, after a while, looked up at Gydaone of her fair looks.
'You did not know,' she said gently, 'that he was asking you to pray against me.'
Gyda met her eyes, first without replying; her hand left Wych Hazel's shoulder and came upon her hair, touching it softly. That old, brown, wrinkled face was so sweet and quiet that it seemed a very stronghold of comfort and counsel and help. Counsel and comfort came in a very simple form this time.
'Dear,' she said, in her slow utterance,'he loves you.'
But Hazel was not inclined to debate that question with anybody but herself. She leaned her head back and shut her eyes, finding curious soothing in the touch of Gyda's hand. Nobody ever touched her so in these days, and she had been very, very lonely. Then suddenly she started up, sitting forward and speaking eagerly.
'You must not tell him!' she said; 'you must not even tell him that I have been here. You must not say one word. Promise me!'
'Till you tell him?' said Gyda placidly.
'Will you promise?' Hazel repeated. 'Things that cannot stand of themselves had betterfall.'
'What is it that cannot stand, dear?'
'I did not come here to talk about that,' said Hazel, laying her head back again. 'I came to talk about myself. Or to do something, besides think.'
'I'll hear,' said Gyda. 'Nothing's going to fall that ought to stand.
Talk, my dear.'
All the while she was standing just at Wych Hazel's shoulder, touching her head with a slight touch; in her face and voice the utmost soothing charm of tender tranquillity. She had been doubtless a Norwegian peasant woman, and had known little of what we call refining advantages in outward things; but love and peace and sympathy had made her wonderfully delicate and quick to divine the needs of those with whom she dealt. It was a hard little hand, but a very soft touch upon Wych Hazel's curls. Furthermore, it was evident, that beyond her sympathy with her visiter's present distress, Gyda was not disturbed about the matter in hand.
'The days have been so long, all these weeks,' said Hazel. 'And the nights were longer than the days.'
'Ah, yes. And you couldn't trust the Lord with your trouble?'
'I thinkI did try, sometimes,' said the girl slowly, 'but I do not quite know. I was in such confusion, and other things came in, and I was afraid of doing itonly to please him, because'
'Eh,' said Gyda. 'Yes, to please who, dear?'
Hazel put up one little hand and laid it upon Gyda's, so giving her answer.
'Because,' she began again presently, 'I had thoughtit had seemed as ifmaybe_that_ was the reason of it all. Do such things come upon people for doing wrong things, when they do not know they are wrong?'
'Mayhap,' said Gyda, who through the obscurities of this speech threaded her way to one thing only. 'It's only the straight way, dear, that has no crooks in it. But seeisn't my lad's lady in the straight way?'
'But I meanI do not know how to tell you,' she said, covering her face with her hands. 'When he had grown so goodand I had not,I thought, perhaps, that was the reason. I thought of it last winter, before this came; and I have never seen him sincebut once. I might seemdifferentto him, you know,' Hazel added, in her girlish way. Then she took her hands down and looked at Gyda, searching for her answer. But Gyda gently smiled.
'I think you'll soon know,' she said. 'Suppose you don't think any more about it, till he comes.'
Hazel was silent a few minutes, but thinking all the while as hard as she could. She was in no hurry now for Mr. Rollo to come; her dread of seeing him again was extreme. And by this time another matter claimed her attention, over and above everything else; she must get home while she could. If physical prostration and reaction went on at the rate they had begun, it would not take much longer to make the scramble over the hill a sheer impossibility.
'I must go,' she said abruptly. 'But you will let me come once more?'
Gyda was about to answer, when she turned her head sharply towards the door. Her ears caught a sound in that direction, and the next instant Wych Hazel's ears caught it too; the sound of steps, quick steps, a man's steps, coming along the flag-stones outside the cottage. A hand on the door, the door open, and Rollo himself was there.