CHAPTER XXII.
PREPARATORY FREAKS.
Hazel could not tell how she had borne herself, through all that trying evening. But when the evening was over, then she felt as if she could not have held out one minute more: with the wheels of Dr. Arthur's buggy rolled away the last mite of her self-control. One half minute longer of such tension, and she should have broken down, and called back her promise, and done everything else to be sorry for next day. It even seemed to her as she stood there, with all the repressed excitement in "a light low," as if she could not bear the room itself; and (almost) the people who had been in it. As if she was wild and frantic and beside herself generally. She flew off upstairsnot now to solitary musings and lonely questionings, but straight to the housekeeper's room,and was down on her knees with her face hid in Mrs. Bywank's lap, before anybody, herself included, had chance to breathe. For there are times, when in all the world there is nothing like a woman, after all. And in all the world, this was the one woman to whom she could come. But she would not speak nor look up nor at first answer questions; only hid her face closer than ever.
Now Mrs. Bywank had seen enough of her young lady, to know that every real heart sorrow Wych Hazel took to her own room alone. Also that any emergency of accident or fear, would be acted upon first, before getting the upper hand. Moreover the one look she caught as Miss Wych came in, told her much: the sweet flushed face, the shy eyes that avoided everything; the stirred, moved, frightened set of the mouth,Mrs Bywank was old, and drew her conclusions. Not for many contingencies would Miss Wych have a fit of the nerves like this.
'So?' she said soothingly, laying her hand on the restless curls. 'Is that it! I thought there wouldn't be much waiting now!'Which brought such a sudden start and twist, that Mrs. Bywank smiled to herself and knew she was right.
'And when is it to be, Miss Wych?'
'When I have breathed twice and turned round three times.'
'My dear!' remonstrated Mrs. Bywank. 'I am sure'
'You are sure of nothing!' said the girl quickly. 'And I am not. Not sure of myself. Not sure of anybody or anything.'
'Except Mr. Rollo,' said the old housekeeper quietly; smiling softly then at the success of her spell, for Hazel was silent. 'But that is the great point. And as I was saying, Miss Wych, I am sure I am glad; for I have been worried to death about you.'
'You ought to be worried to death about me now,' said Wych
Hazel. 'I am worried to death about myself.'
'Yes?' said the old housekeeper fondly, curling the dark hair round her fingers. 'Are you my dear? What about, Miss Wych?'
'How can it go right, or be right, when it is all disagreeable?' said the girl. 'It ought to be pleasantand it all isn't!'
'It's all new, just now, my dear.'
'Never to be free again!' said Hazel. 'Never to have my own way or do as I please!'
'Ah,' said Mrs. Bywank, 'that was Eve's fault! But with a man like Mr. Rollo, Miss Wych, it will be your own if it gives you much trouble.'
'Things generally are, that do,' said Hazel. But she sighed a little, putting her face closer down in her hands. 'Byo,' she said after a pause, getting hold of the old housekeeper's hand now and laying her face there, 'it is very, very hard to have it so soon! I have not thought,I am not ready,I feel just as if I should fly!'
There was no gainsaying part of this, and Mrs. Bywank tried petting and coaxing instead of reason, for awhile.
'But think how lonely Mr. Rollo is, Miss Wych,' she said, trying a diversion. 'Think what a two months he has had just now!'
'I am thinking about myself,' said the girl shortly.
'And I am thinking about your cake,' said Mrs. Bywank. 'If it was a little earlier, I'd go at the raisins to-night.'
Wych Hazel started up with an exclamation.
'Now stop!' she said. 'If you begin to make a bit of fuss, I shall run away. Who wants cake? People can eat cake at other times, I suppose.'
'I suppose they can,' said Mrs. Bywank laughing, 'but this is a good time too. You must have your cake.'
'There will be no dress to stand with it,' said Hazel. 'The cake will feel lonelylike me.'
Mrs. Bywank sighed a little, stroking the pretty head.
'My dear,' she said, 'you will be dressed, whatever you wear.'
'Can you guess how?' said Wych Hazel. 'I have not heart to put on a white dress. And I could not get a new one here, if I wanted it, and I could not have it made up, if I did. And I wouldn't, if I could.'
'No,' said the old housekeeper, 'so my dear mistress said. "Bywank, it will be dreary work for my little Wych to choose her own wedding dress all alone. I must get it for her." Then she sat and thought awhile"No," she said,"the white would turn yellow, and the dark would fade." And she stopped for a good while then,' said the old housekeeper in a trembling voice; 'but by and by she spoke up, soft and tender"Bywank, if it is so,if it should be so,tell her to take some one she has; and give her my veil.And when she is wrapped in my loveand Dane's loveshe will not mind the dress." And you were asleep on her lap all the while, my dear.'
Hazel was sobbing quietly in the old housekeeper's arms before the words were ended; but then she rose up, and kissed Mrs. Bywank on both cheeks, and went away.
And for awhile she felt better,tears and coaxing can sometimes do much. She went to bed and to sleep, prepared to wake up next morning and do her duty, and be a pattern of all the wise, steady, and practical virtues. Instead of which, Miss Wych opened her eyes upon more freaks than had come at her call for many a day.
It was clear, sharp, winter weather, without snow; and the first fancy that seized the girl, even while she was dressing, was to spend every minute of spare time in the woods, while still they were hers. No use to reason with herself, or refute such a statement of things,out she must go; and out she didevery possible bit of the next three days. Too conscious to let any one know where she was, not liking to have even Lewis look on; she would elude Mrs. Bywank, and post Lewis in some good open spot where he could walk himself warm and be within hailing distance. Then she would wander off, her whistle at her belt, and roam about from tree to tree and rock to rock of her beloved woods, coming home so tired!Always in time for Rollo, if he was expected, never seeing any one else.
Then, except when he was there, she never sat a minute in the red room, though the fire was made there regularly, but sometimes she would wander over the old house in like manner, if the weather kept her indoors; sitting up late and rising up early, as if she grudged every minute spared from these last days. It was not good for her, this way of going on, and did by no means tend to steadiness of nerves; but no one knew who could interfere, and this time Mrs. Bywank would not tell. She did all the worrying to herself, with a sore heart.
It was a sore heart her young lady took with her in her wanderings,in all her life Wych Hazel had never felt so utterly alone. No wonder she was grave when anybody saw her; no wonder reserve seemed to grow and deepen as Christmas came near. And there was another disappointment: the pretty Christmas doings of which she had thought so much, had lost all interest now. She had written one order and given others concerning supplies for the Charteris men; but all like a machine, with no pleasure nor life. Nothing was her doing any more,what did it matter? And when in a quiet moment, at night perhaps, she would get hold of herself, and look at her own goings on; then it turned all to falsehood and treachery and every other hard name she could think of, until Hazel felt as if her cup of troubles was quite running over; and that if Rollo could know, he would never want to set eyes on her again. Ought she to tell him? Tell him what?that he was the very centre of her life, only unhappily not just now a centre of rest. That was the sum of it all, when she footed things up; and no shyness nor freaks nor self-will would change that. The mere fact that there was no one else in the world, for her, made her cling to the very sound of his name, and so seem shyeras he saidthan any bird that ever flew. It was to be hoped, in these days, that he was good at interpreting negatives, and reading things upside down, for not much else came to his eyes. Only somehow she so far managed herself, that no slightest roughness ever came out towards him. A little abruptness now and then,otherwise the extremest grave reserve, but graceful to a point.
He was pretty good help. Wych Hazel did not, it is true, see very much of him; the short days were full of business in the Hollow and he could not always get away; however he managed to come to dinner several times that week. And then he was full of talk and interest, full of quiet care and attention, but as calm and unconscious, seemingly, as if he had never heard of his wedding day. Only, Wych Hazel felt more and more in his manner that quality of reverential tenderness, which is the crowning grace a man can shew to a woman, and which a man never shews to any woman but one. It marks her as invested with a kind of halo in his eyes; as sacred and separate from the common world for evermore; while it is itself a sort of glory of division between her an them, even in the apprehension of the same world.