The Gold of Chickaree

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

CHAPTER XXIV.

ONE AND ONE ARE TWO.

'They will never agree, those two!' said Prudentia Coles, the next morning at breakfast.

'They will agree perfectly!' said Primrose.

Good Dr. Maryland lifted his eyebrows in astonishment at both utterances.

'Their ways were too different,' said Mrs. Coles.

'Their ways will be alike,' said Prim.

'Of course, their ways will be one,' said the doctor. But he was very old-fashioned.

And people do not change their natures because they happen to love one another, nor even because they happen to be married. Still less!

There happened to be a run of very bad weather for several days after the two persons concerned arrived in New York. That did not indeed hinder business in Wall street and elsewhere, but it put an effective barrier to pleasure seeking out of doors. The best and most exclusive appointments of the best hotel, did not quite replace Chickaree, during the long days which Hazel perforce had to spend by herself. At last there came a morning when the sun shone.

'What have you got to do to-day?' Rollo asked her.

'One trunk to fill for other people, and two for myself.'

'Sounds large! Can you do it in a day?'

'I am an adept at filling trunks.'

'Let me see your purse.'

'O that needs no looking after,' said Hazel, flushing up.

'I only want to see it,' said Dane smiling. 'Not to rifle it. I want to see what sort of a thing you carry.'

The "things" were two, and very like Hazel; a pocket-book and purse of the daintiest possible description. Various coins shewed through the gold meshes of the one; the Russia leather of the other told no tales. Rollo turned them over, half smiling to himself.

'Is there enough here for to-day's work?'

'I have Mr. Falkirk's cheque for my last quarter's allowance. I generally make that do,' said Hazel.

'Doesn't your stock need supplementing?'

'No, thank you,' she said softly and shyly.

'I will arrange all that presently, Hazel. Meanwhile I am very sorry I cannot go along to help you fill those trunks; but I have several people to see and less pleasant work to do. We'll get some of this business over, and then we'll play. Take a carriage, and Byrom shall wait upon you.'

'I do not want Byrom. He is not used to me. And perhaps I may walk.'

'Byrom is used to me,' said Dane significantly.

'Proof positive of my two propositions,' said Hazel with a laugh.
'Waiting on me, is bewildering work to a new hand.'

'If I give it him in charge, he will do it well. Byrom has a head.'

'But I do not want to be given in charge. Have not I a head too?'

Rollo laughed at her, and remarked that it was 'one he was bound to take care of.'

'So am I, I should hope,' said Hazel. 'What do you suppose I shall do with itor with myself generallythat you call out a special detail of police?'

'Did Mr. Falkirk let you go about by yourself?'

'Always! At least, so far as he was concerned,' said Hazel correcting herself.

'I warned you what you were to expect,' said Rollo lightly. But then they came to the breakfast table, and something else was talked of. When the meal was over, and he was about going, bending down by her chair, he asked,

'What time will you have the carriage?'

'No time,' said Hazel. 'I have decided to walk.'

'I want you to take a carriage and let Byrom attend youthe sidewalks are in a state of glare ice this morning.'

'I am sure-footed.'

'I am glad of it,' said Rollo half laughing. 'What hour shall I say?'

'Why none!' said Hazel emphatically, with a passing thought of wonder at his obtuseness, though at the moment she was deep in her notebook. 'None, thank you.'

Rollo's eyes sparkled, as he stood behind her, and his lips twitched.

'Is that the way you used to handle Mr. Falkirk, when he expressed his wishes about some point of your action?'

'Mr. Falkirk was indulged with a variety of ways.'

'Have you got a variety in store for me?'

'For any deserving objectI am extremely impartial,' said Hazel turning a leaf.

'Won't you give me another variety then, this morning?' said he softly. 'Because I am not going to let you go out on foot to-day, Hazel.'

'Not let me?' Hazel repeated, looking round from her notebook now to ask the question. There was no explanation in the face that confronted her, nor any consciousness of having said anything that needed it. Hazel looked at him for a second, open-eyed.

'What can you possibly mean?' she said.

'If it means interference with your pleasure, I am sorry.'

Probably something in face and figure made this reply more definite than the words, for Wych Hazel's face waked up.

'But it does!' she said. 'I told you so at first.'

'It would interfere with mine very much, to have you go as you proposed.'

'But that is simply!' Hazel suddenly checked her rapid words, and brought her face back over the notebook again; bending down to hide the crimson which yet could not be hid.

'What is "simply"?' said Dane, touching his own face to the crimson. But Hazel did not speak.

'I must go, Hazel,' said he now looking at his watch. 'I have not another minute. I will send Byrom to you for orders.' And with a very gentle kiss to the bowed cheek as he spoke, he went off. And Hazel sat still where he left her, and thought,with her face in her hands now. Thoughts, and feelings too, were in a whirl. In the first place,no, there was no possible telling what came first. But was he going to direct every little thing of her life? Well, she had given him leave last winter, in her mind. That is, if he would do it. But would he really? Somehow she had fancied he would not. She had fancied thatsomehowhe would find out that she had a little sense, and trust to it. She felt so disappointed, and caged, and disturbed.And then she had withstood him!a thing he never pretended to bear. Maybe he had gone off disappointed, too. And one of her old saucy speeches had been on the tip of her tongue! and next time, as like as not, it would slip out, and what should she do then? What should she do now?go out as she was bid, like a good child? Hazel almost laughed at herself for the bound her mind gave, straight back from this idea,which after all was the only one to act out. For the old sweetness of temper had taken to itself no edge, and the old dignity which had so often found its safety in submission did not fail her now. Nevertheless, Wych Hazel rose up and stood before the fire, knotting her fingers into various complications. Yes, it was her duty to go. But when Byrom knocked at the door, Hazel sprang away to the next room and sent her orders by Phoebe. Then, after the old comical fashion, she worked out her waywardness in every possible proper way that she could. She put on one of her wonderful toilettes, and then went slowly down the broad stairs (thinking fast!)and flashed out upon Byrom like a young empress in her robes. And a sinecure he had of it for the next few hours. To stand at the carriage door and receive the most laconic of orders; to see her pass from carriage to store and from store to carriage, erect and tall and stately, and with no more apparent notice of the icy sidewalks than if they had been strewn with cotton wool. If he followed close to pick her up, Wych Hazel took no notice and gave him no chance. In like manner she did her work with an executive force and gravity which made the clerks into quicksilver and drove one or two old admirers whom she met nearly frantic. They hailed her by her old name; and Hazel got rid of them she hardly knew how, except that it was in a blaze of discomfort for herself. And after that she kept furtive watch; quitting counters and stores, and rushing upor downin elevators, after the most erratic and extraordinary fashion; a vivid spot on either cheek, and eyes in a shadow, and a mouth that grew graver every hour. O if she could but order the coachman to driveanywheretill she said stop!but no such orders could go through Byrom; she must work off her mood at home. And so at last, in the darkest dress she had, Wych Hazel once more sat down before the fire, and put her face in her hands. All through the day, under and over everything else, the old shyness had green growing up, mixing itself with the new,the old dread of having a man speak to her in the way of comment, with a thought of blame. Would anybody do it now? So she sat until steps came to the door and the door opened; then she rose quickly up.

But the matter which had occasioned her so many thoughts, had scarcely given Rollo one; and it was plain he had fully forgotten it now in his gladness at seeing her again after the long day. His face had nothing but gladness; and as he took her in his arms she felt that the gladness was very tender.

'Work all done!' he asked.

'O no.'Hazel was glad too. The day had been long.

'But I am going to play to-morrow!'

'Well, what about it?'

'Work must wait. We have got a great deal to do. Don't you agree with me, that every full cup ought to flow over into some empty ones?'

'Instead of into its own saucer?' said Hazel, who was rather abstractedly brushing off an imaginary grain of dust from his coat stuff. 'Perhaps it would be safe to allow that I do.'

'Well,' said Rollo laughing at her, 'there are plenty of empty cups.
How many can we fill to-morrow?'

'If you have been at work on that problem, no wonder you want play. How many?I do not know. How much too full is your cup to-night?'

'It feels like the widow's inexhaustible cruise of oil. And by the way, I believe that the store from which anybody may supply others, is inexhaustible. Now let us consider.' And he stood silent and thoughtful a few minutes, Hazel not interrupting him.

'I can tell you one thing,' he began again. 'Prudentia Coles would like a black silk dress; and she cannot afford it.'

'I certainly owe her that,' said Hazel,'and a royal purple to boot.'

'How do you "owe" it?'

'For tipping my cup over, once. I wonder whether she thought I was too happy to be let alone?'

'Give her both the dresses, Hazel. She is not a happy woman. It will fill her cup for the time being.'

'Then, if you talk of debts,' said Hazel, 'I owe Prim the greatest quantity of wholesome animadversion. It never was of the least use to me,but she ought to be paid for it, all the same.'

'I suppose you deserved it,' said Rollo coolly.

'Do you?' said Hazel. Had she? Her thoughts flew over the confusions of the day,then before she began again, Rollo asked,

'Have you written to Mr. Falkirk, Hazel?'

'I? No. I have nothing to say to him.'

Rollo looked at her, first with a grave consideration, and then his lips twitched.

'Nothing to say to him?' he repeated.

'Nothing whatever.'

'Does it fall to me to instruct you in the proprieties? It is due to him to inform him that you are his ward up no longer; that you have done what he would very much have disapproved, and married me at a week's notice; which, you may tell him, was not at all your fault, and done principally for the sake of the men in the Charteris mills. Don't you see, Hazel, that you ought to tell him all this?'

'No,' said Hazel, with one of her old witch looks flashing out for a moment. 'If your right of way does not cover all the disagreeable business, I cannot see what use in the world I can make of it.'

'My right of way?' repeated Dane looking at her.

'Yes. The right to do what you please should be extended to take in all that I do not please.'

'Across all which of mine, your right of way, I suppose, takes a zigzag track!'

'Underground.'

'It will be dangerous there!' said Dane, his eyes flashing. 'For pity's sake, Hazel, keep it aboveground.'

'Collisions are bad things,' said Hazel,'and switching off on a side track tries one's patience. But about Mr. Falkirkthere never was the least atom of father and daughter between us; he always kept me at arm's length. It was one of the trials of my life. And he has been just throwing me off more and more,a year ago twenty sisters would not have made him leave me alone. And he said nothing but unpleasant things before he went,and I should have to lay all the blame on you. And in short,' said Hazel summing up, 'he could not be angry with my letter, and he could with yours, which would comfort him up.'

Perhaps it was the thought of Hazel's great loneliness that touched him, the very remembrance of which he wished to kiss away; perhaps something else had its share in the caresses which were as tender as they were loving; but then he said softly,

'It would not be the proper thing, Hazel.'

'Well.' A rather long breath gave up the point.

'Don't you see it, Wych?'

'Not quite. But you do not know how he talked before he went away.Nor what sort of a letter I shall be sure to write. I shall tell him that as it distracted my attention to run counter to two people'

'You will write a very gentle and careful one. He loves you very much, Hazel. Which was one reason why he was so unwilling that you and I should get acquainted.'

Wych Hazel looked up at him with absolute terror in her face.
'What do you mean?' she said.

'It is not very strange. I have the greatest respect for Mr. Falkirk and not the less because he had sense enough to love you a little too well. Do you remember your making him go to Catskill?'

Wych Hazel's head went down on her hands, without a word; but outside the shielding fingers the distressful colour shewed itself in every possible place. Remember!what did she not remember? things she had done, things she had said.

'He was afraid,' Dane went on smiling, 'that if I had a chance to see you I might choose to take the conditions of the will; he had good reason to fear! You must write him the dutifullest, gentlest, lovingest letter, Hazel; and lay off the blame of everything upon the shoulders that can bear it. Mr. Falkirk knows me. And if, by and by, we could coax him to come and make his home with us, I should be happy.'

'And everybody knew it but me!'said Hazel, thinking out. 'It is good I can do no more mischief.'

'What is that?' said Dane laughing. 'What mischief have you done?'

'HushI was talking to myself. But oh, I am so sorry!' Looks and tones and words and recollections were pouring in upon her like a flood.

'What are you sorry for? You need not be sorry, my little Wych,' said he, changing his tone with the last words. 'You have done him good and given him pleasure for so many years; and I am not without hope that both good and pleasure will be renewed and continued to the end of his life. So write a nice letter to him. And come to dinner in the first place.'

But it was a very remorseful flushed face that came to the table.

'Done him good and given him pleasure!' she repeated;'teased his life out, would be nearer the mark.'

'That did him good,' said Dane dryly. 'That is the way you expect to give me pleasure, you know.'

From under a queer little lift of her eyebrows, Hazel looked up at him. 'Is it?' she said with equal dryness.

'Does the leopard change his spots?'

'The other half of the simile is more like me,' said Hazel, 'however, if you prefer this But given the spots, the pleasure may be to seek.'

'I can find it, as fast as you find the spots. Will you have cheese with your soup?'

Hazel thought within herself, declining the cheese, that the day when she ventured any of her old pranks with that particular person, was somewhat remote. Would she ever be "true witch" again, she wondered?

'You forget,' she said. 'You told me once yourself that you thought very few men could stand it.'

'I meantexcept me,' said Dane with great coolness.

'You'didn't, was on Hazel's tongue, but she let it stay there. A quick, bright eye flash went over her, but Dane kept his countenance and went on with his dinner. He understood very well one or two things that were in Hazel's mind. He knew that she thought she had lost liberty in marrying, and he knew that she was mistaken in thinking so; but he also knew that the sweet growths of the mind cannot be forced; and he could wait. He never said "my dear" and "my love" to her, this man; he let Hazel find him out for what he was, all hers; but it might take time. He thought he would give her a little help.

'Have you been studying the third chapter of Genesis?' he asked when the servant was out of the room.

'No. At leastI was thinking of Adam and Eve a little when you came home.'

'In German or English?'

'English prose.'

'It is stronger yet in German. "Dein Wille soll deinem Manne unterworfen sein, and er soll dein Herr sein." I think you have been studying it in German. But Hazel, that is the form of the curse; and the curse is done away in Christ.'

'But,' she said gravely, her timid reserve coming back with the subject,'But the facts stand.'

'What facts? And take some nuts along with the facts.'

'The factsof the case,' said Hazel, using her nut-cracker and laying the meats abstractedly on one side. 'The right of way,and strength to enforce it,for two.'

Again Dane's eyes flashed and the corners of his mouth were a little hard to keep in order.

'Neatly put' he said.

Hazel glanced at him, but she ventured no questions.

'But you forget, Hazel,' he went on gravely, 'that all that, the odious part of it, belongs to a state of things that in Christ is passed away. It remains true, no doubt, that "the man is the head of the woman;" else the lesson-type would not answer to the lesson, which is to set forth the beauty and nearness of the relation between Christ and his church. But in a right marriage it is also true that "the woman is the glory of the man." Not the housekeeper, nor the nurse, or the plaything, still less the bond- woman; but the GLORY. She is the flower of all humanity; the good and beauty and grace of all earth, findsfor himits perfectest bloom and expression in her.'

She listened, smiling a little bit, then grave again.

'But that'she said,'is that what it means?'

'Excuse me. What what means, Wych?'

'The words you quoted. The last words.'

'Do they mean what I said? Certainly.'

'And only that?'

'Can you make them mean more?'

'For me, a good deal more.'

'Then it will be for me, probably. Go on, and explain.'

'No, perhaps not for you. You might be perfectly content with the flower, as you call it, in your hand; content with your content; looking no further.'

'You are mistaken,' said Dane, with a manner both amused and pleased.'I should never be content with my content.'

'But I mean' She was not very willing to tell her meaning, the words came slowly,'I used to think, that being so much to him, she must needs be something in herself. That only one who was a glory in herself, could be the glory of another. In my way'Hazel added, dropping her voice, ' "She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life." And he will be "known in the gates" by more than the robe of purple and silk which her hands have woven!'

As far as the face could then, it went down, bending over the nuts.
Dane looked, and smiled, and took no advantage.

'I do not see the difference of your view from mine,' he remarked quietly. 'You credit me surely with so much discrimination as to perceive that some women are nobody's glory,even as some men are fit to be nobody's head.'

'But people do not think so,' said Hazel. 'People make it out to be just something supplemental,a sort of convenient finishing up the few trifles of comfort or help wherein a man may be deficient. That is what they all say.It is a very queer thing to be a woman!'

'Is it?' said Dane gravely.

'Yes!' said Hazel with one of her outbursts.'Prim tells me not to vex you, and Dr. Maryland wants to know ifif I shall be a help or a hindrance, in short; and he hopes you will not let me have my own way too much. Nobody enquires if you are likely to vex me, or to try my temper, or to develope my character, or help on my work; nobody supposes that I have any work, of my own. But if I have not, that is only the more queer.'

Rollo left his seat, he had got enough of his nuts; and coming behind Wych Hazel gently laid hold of both her hands and freed them from what they held, then insinuated her chair backwards, and lifting her out of it led her away to the fire and wrapped her in his arms. What it was no use to say, he did not say, however; as he had once told her he never asked for a thing he could not have, so even now, he would not supplicate for confidence which must be the growth of time. She would find out for herself, by and by, what concerned him; and the rest he did not are about. So his answer now was a departure. He did not kiss her; he stood pushing back the brown curls from her brow, on one side and on the other, looking down into her face with eyes which Hazel instinctively knew were too mighty to meet just then. So standing he coolly asked her,

'Do you love me, duchess?'

'I was talking of loving myself,' said Hazel, touching up her flushed cheeks with vivid carnation.

'I can do that better than you can. How about your part?'

'Reasoning from factsprobablyI must!'

'You are afraid to confide that deep secret to me? Now I should have no sort of difficulty in proclaiming mine to anybody who had any business to ask it. It must be a queer thing to be a woman!' said Dane, with a dry, humourous, but at the same time wholly tender and sweet expression.

'Have I not confided it?' Hazel said under her breath. 'Do you think
I would be here? What makes you ask such things? Is it because'
But there she stopped.

'Because is a woman's reason. I never do things "because." What did you mean to ask?'

'I think I have been very unlike myself,that is all.'

'I never saw you unlike yourself,' Dane said, in that gentle manner and tone of his which was more than epithets and endearments from other people. Much more; for those might be mere forms of expression, and these could not be. And she enquired no further, nor raised her eyes to search. Standing there with a host of other questions in her mind; questions she would like to have discussed and settled, but which never would be;so she thought. Unless indeed in the slow, unsatisfactory way in which time settles all things.