The Gold of Chickaree

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

CHAPTER XXX.

A TRAVELLING CLOCK.

'How shall I stand it?' she was saying to herself, as the wheels rolled smoothly on. 'How shall ever bear six more such days! Oh how could he ask them!how could he, how could he!They come right in between and put him ten miles away. My pleasure should have come first.It is not fair.'

But here a troublesome question presented itself: what is "fair" from people who have everything, to those who have not? And then one of the new maxims which Hazel had but lately learned to love came softly in.

"Use hospitality one to another"so it ran. But how? "Without grudging."

'And I have grudged every minute since she came!' thought Hazel, her hands folded over her eyes. 'Well, I did not want her.No, but Dane did. Of course,yes,I must "use hospitality" for him. But I do think, just now, he might have been content with me!But by and by he could not give them this pleasure.Well, they needn't have it!'

"Without grudging""without grudging"either time or trouble or one's own pleasure. Wych Hazel drew a long sigh. Then the words began again.

"Charity seeketh not her own.""Beareth all things.""Endureth all things."

Wych Hazel pulled the check string and turned towards home. 'Resolved,' she said to herself; 'first, that Dane was extremely unreasonable to ask them. Second, that that is none of my business. Third, that I will do everything for them I can. If I keep them on the go, they won't know how I feel.' But there came in another message.

"Every man as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity, for God loveth a cheerful giver." So it must be heart work, after all!Wych Hazel sighed a little as she went off to dress; and Rollo saw a thoughtful face opposite him at table, and got none of the shy dainty looks to which he was accustomed. Under the commenting eyes of Mrs. Coles, Hazel felt as if she could not look at him at all!

Nevertheless that was not a bad evening. For when two people are beaming with pleasure and through your means, a little reflection of the pleasure, at least, falls upon you. And Mrs. Coles and Prim were in a state of ecstasy; a fulness of satisfaction which at the moment left nothing to be wished for. It was not the same in the two. Mrs. Coles feeling herself for the time bien placée and foreseeing varieties of social and other delights attainable in such circumstances; but Prim was happy in being with Dane again. They had plenty to talk about all the evening; for there was much to tell about things in the Hollow, and Arthur's reports, and Prim's use of the money she had found in her new secretary; and Dr. Maryland's delight in his new books, and how the new carpet on the library made the old place look a different thing; also there was some laughing pleasant chatter about Prim's trunk. It was funny to see how both the ladies sat with their faces turned towards Dane three-quarters of the time; Prudentia possibly with a desire to propitiate, Primrose forgetting everything else in the moment's pleasure of seeing him; and both of them being a little unconsciously shy towards Hazel. However, that evening rolled off well; and also the next day was filled with business which left no leisure for spare.

The evening brought leisure. But Dane was a shield for Hazel whenever he was present. Nothing of Mrs. Coles' could touch her; it was sure to be caught midway, shuttle-wise, and turned back, before even Hazel's battledore could have a chance at it. He was gay and hospitable all the while; making Prim very happy, and even Mrs. Coles too. The latter lady was on her good behaviour. Nevertheless, she could not quite lose her opportunity. Nature is stronger than policy.

'Hazel tells us you have been very selfish, and not taken her anywhere all these weeks, Dane,' she remarked bridling, with her peculiar smooth manner of insinuating a charge or a criticism.

'Yes,' said Dane carelessly. 'You see, we have really had so many people to attend to.'

'But Hazel did not speak of your going anywhere?'

'Take my report of the matter, and let Hazel's alone.'

'Well, she certainly is right in one thing; you did not go to Mrs.
Schornstein's reception?'

'She is right; we did not.'

'Nor to the ball at Mrs. Powder's?'

'True; we did not.'

'Don't you think you ought?'

'If we had thought we ought, I suppose we should have gone,' said Dane, with a manner of lazy indifference which sometimes came over him.

'But my dear! There are things one owes to Society.'

'I believe I never understood what is meant by my obligations to Society,' said Dane. 'What has Society done, that we should be in debt to it?'

'Why!'said Mrs. Coles with a burdened breath, 'you should remember what is due to your position.'

'What is my position?'

'Do, Prue, let him alone!' said Primrose. 'Do you think he doesn't know what he is about?'

'He does not seem to know his position,' said her sister. 'Why you and your wife ought to be leaders of Society, Dane.'

'I have no objection,' said Rollo imperturbably. 'I will lead
Societyif Society will follow me.'

'But if you want to lead Society, you must please Society,' said
Mrs. Coles.

'That is assuming that you know which way I want Society to go.'

'Prue, you can't lead Duke,' said Primrose laughing. 'Don't you know that?'

Mrs. Coles looked puzzled and stayed her questions. Rollo was putting some engravings into their frames, and in the intervals of the work displaying them to the admiration of herself and Prim. Prim's enjoyment of them was very hearty; Mrs. Coles looked on with a divided and impatient, as well as curious mind. By and by she broke forth again.

'Have you taken Hazel to hear Sacchi-süssi, the new prima donna?'

'No.'

'I can't find out that you have done anything! Well, tell me one thing, and I'll forgive you; are you and your wife going to give a grand entertainment by and by, and ask all these people you have been slighting? Of course, I do not mean here; you could not do it here; but at home; by and by, at Chickaree. Will you do that?'

'I see one difficulty in the way,' said Dane, adjusting and arranging a lovely photograph of Ischl, and speaking with a negligent regard of the other subject in hand which greatly provoked his mentor.

'What can that difficulty be? You have everything'

'One thing more than you have reckoned. I have the poor, and the maim, and the halt and the blind to look after.'

'What has that to do with the point?'

'Prior claim,that is all.'

'But you have rich neighbours too.'

'Yes. But they are not in so much need of me.'

'My dear Dane! you are absurd.'

'Prove it'said Dane quietly, laying Ischl out of his hands and taking up another photograph, beautifully executed, of Monteverde's marble "Genius of Franklin." This so excited Primrose's interest and curiosity, that Mrs. Coles for a little while could not get in a word. She sat, no doubt mentally cursing the fine arts, and photography which had come to multiply the fruits of them.

'Dane,' she began with restrained impatience as soon as she saw a chance, 'why cannot you attend to the rich, as well as to the poor?'

'For the way you want me to attend to the rich, time fails. And money. And I may add, strength.'

'You and Hazel have no end of money,' said Mrs. Coles impatiently.

'It will not do all we want it to do, with the best economy.'

Mrs. Coles was silent a minute, remembering her two silks, one of which she had on at this very time, and how handsome they were; and her thought glanced to Prim's trunk, and the new secretaries, and the library carpet. She spoke with a somewhat lowered tone.

'Won't you ask anybody to your house, Dane, if he happens to be rich?'

'Not unless I have some other reason for asking him.Heinert went off to-day, Hazel,'Dane added with a change of tone.

'But Dane,' Mrs. Coles said despairingly, 'you are flying in the face of Society.'

'Mistaken, Prue; my face is turned in quite another direction,' said Dane with a slight glance at his wife which conveyed very merry and sweet private intelligence. He had just received a small parcel from Byrom, and was unrolling it in his hands; which also drew Mrs. Coles' attention and stopped the flow of her arguments. When the last fold of soft paper came off, there appeared a tiny clock; so tiny that at first nobody understood what it was; but as Dane set it upon the mantelpiece it struck the hour. The notes were like silver bells, so liquid, clear and musical, that there was a general exclamation of delight.

'My dear Dane? what is that?' exclaimed his interlocutor.

'Hazel's travelling clock.'

"Hazel's travelling clock!Where is she going?'

'Wherever I go,' said Dane coolly.

'But where are you going? I thought your hands were full with your mills.'

'Just now they are rather full.'

'Won't they be full a long time, Duke?' said Primrose.

'Perhaps. But when I get things in order, then I shall go, if I can.'

'Where?' asked Mrs. Coles.

'In generalto see the midnight sun, and the moonlight on Milan.'

'You have been there before.'

'Just why I want to go there again,' said Rollo, while his eye came furtively over to Wych Hazel with a sparkle in it. And he went on.'I know a little lake in the Bavarian mountains. It lies in the midst of the tall stems of ancient forest trees. The water is so clear that you can see the small stones at the bottom, sixty feet down. Above the lake and above the tops of the trees, you eye can reach the mountain walls of rock towering thousands of feet up, bearing their everlasting snow fields. Then if you look down, you see in the water the reflection of a cross that stands on the summit of one of the mountains; the Zug-spitze. And the whole little lake, to use the expression of an enthusiastic German , is "as green as the dewdrop on a lettuce leaf." '

'My dear Dane!' said Mrs. Coles in bewilderment. 'Where is it?'

'In Bavaria.'

'That's in Germany, isn't it? Have you ever been there?'

'How else should I know how green it is?' said Dane, who had now got into his manner of lazy apathy.

'And why do you want to take Hazel there?' Mrs. Coles went on.

'I would like her to see how green it is. I shall not take her to the place where the cross stands on the Zug-spitzethough I have been there too; for her head might turn. But I will take her a half- day's walk from Windisch-matrei to G' schlöss, instead.'

'What is there, Duke?' asked Primrose, for Hazel did not speak.

'That is called the German Chamounix. The fields of blue ice come down almost to the bottom of the valley.'

'And is it pretty?'

'Chamounix is reckoned so.'

'I should think you would go to the real Chamounix, while you are about it,' remarked Mrs. Coles.

'Common,'said Dane. 'Never be common, if you can help it. Then from G' schlöss we will mount the Grossen Venediger. It is eleven thousand feet high, to be sure, but uncommonly easy to go up; and from the top we shall have a good wilderness view of rocks and ice and snowand little else, beside sky.'

'I do not see the pleasure in that,' said Mrs. Coles.

'O I do,' said Primrose. 'But Duke, Hazel could not walk half a day, like you.'

'Yes, she could, in the high Alps.'

'It must be delightful!' Primrose said musingly.

'Another time I will take her over the Dobratsch. She can ride up there.'

'Duke, you do use very odd words. What is the Dobratsch?'

'A mountain in Illyriaalmost as good as the Rigi.'

'Why not go to the Rigi?' said Mrs. Coles.

'Crowds. But I will go to the Rigi too, if Hazel makes a point of it. The Dobratsch has more variety of scenery than the Rigi. Both give you lakes and glaciers; but from the Dobratsch you have a view of tremendous weatherworn limestone peaks, and riven Dolomites. Then we will visit the Warmbad-Villach.'

'What is that, Duke?'

'A little watering place. You would like it. A warm clear spring breaks forth just at the borders of the forest. It is a nice place to be late in the season. Then there is another walk I want to shew her, in the Rainthal, going from Taufers.'

'It sounds like a guide-book,' said Mrs. Coles chuckling. 'Where is
Taufers?'

'That is in the Austrian Tyrol. You go for a couple of hours beside a glacier stream which is almost all the way a broad ribband of white foam. The bed of the brook is so steep and rocky that the water is dashed and shivered into spray, glittering in the sunshine, and wetting you all the same. What do you say to that, Hazel? You like brooks.'

Hazel had been deep in the intricacies of a bit of netting; the little foot with the netting-stirrup perched up on a foot cushion, the long needle flying swiftly to and fro. A stir of colour now and then, a curl of the lips, were the only tokens that she heard what went on. She answered sedately.

'They are good society, to follow.'

'And the lakes are not bad,' Dane went on. 'We should go to München of course, to study art; and from there we will take flying runs to the lakes; Ammersee, and Walchensee, and Königsee, and the rest of them.'

'But won't you take her to Mont Blanc and Chamounix, and to see the Matterhorn, where those people were lost?' said Mrs. Coles, whose breath seemed to be taken away.

'Of course. But the mountains are just as good where people have not been lost.'

'Have you been to all these other places already, Duke?' Primrose asked.

'More than once, some of them. I have walked there for weeks with Heinert,' he added, turning to Hazel with again the change of tone.

'And that is your wife's travelling clock!' said Mrs. Coles. 'It seems to me you are betimes about your preparations.'

'Always a good way,' said Dane coolly.

'It is a fine thing to be rich!' the lady went on, gazing at the clock.

'You are just about as rich as I am,' said Dane in the same tone.

'I! As you!!'

'Practically.'

'I don't know what you mean by practically. You have millions, and I have a few hundred or so.'

'I mean only, that neither of us has anything that he can call his own.'

Mrs. Coles stared, but her interlocutor seemed to be looking at things in a very matter-of-fact way. He was now busy fitting another engraving into its fame; a plain black walnut frame, without carving or gilding, like the rest.

'I cannot conceive what you mean, Dane,' Mrs. Coles broke forth.

'It is perfectly simple. Surely the fact that we are only stewards of what we hold, is not strange to you?'

It seemed to be strange however, for Mrs. Coles weighed the statement.

'But Dane,people do not take that so closely.'

'What then? There is the fact.'

'Prudentia, you have heard papa say the same thing, at least a hundred times,' Primrose reminded her.

'He hadn't much to talk about,' said the doctor's eldest daughter. 'And Dane, you do not take it so closely, either. What do you mean by your fine proposal to go travelling? How will you do it, if you have not the money?'

'I hold the money, to be used for the very best ends and interests I know. If when the time comes, I see any way that I can spend the money better, I'll not go.'

'But it would be spending the money on yourselfyourself and your wifeif you went, at any rate,' persisted Mrs. Coles. 'And you say, it is not yours.'

'Mine to spend.'

'On what you please.'

'No; in such ways as will best do the work the Owner of the money wants done.'

'And what has your travelling to do with that? I don't see.'

'If I don't see, as I said, I'll not go.'

'But how could it, you contradictory man?'

'Human nature often needs relaxation and recreation,' said Dane.
'Mine might.'

'Relaxation!' said Mrs. Coles. 'When you know as well as I do, that you are a pine knot for endurance, and a very burr for persistence.'

'Don't take her statements, Hazel,' said Dane. 'She does not know much about the vegetable creation, if she does about me.'

'But answer me, if you can.'

'Human nature also needs cultivation, I was going to add. A servant must make himself the best servant he can. A man is bound to give himself and his family the utmost of every kind of cultivation that is possible to him without neglecting higher ends.'

'H'm. And is Mrs. Rollo's travelling clock Which class does that come under?'

'Pleasure.'

'O you hold pleasure lawful then?'

'Certainly. Within the above limits.'

'Prue, Prue,' said Prim uneasily. 'Stop. You have gone far enough; and too far.'

'I was seeking knowledge, Prim; and that, Dane says, is commendable. May I ask one other question, Dane? What head do these mean little picture frames come under?'

'You do not like them?' said Dane, surveying the one in hand with its enclosed photograph of Dannecker's Ariadne.

'Why don't you have handsomer ones?'

'Economy.'

'You cannot mean it.'

'Neverthelessit is true.'

'You, who have such loads of money? '

'To use, as I told you,' said Dane, smiling now. 'The engravings and photographs are both pleasure and education. I do not find either the one or the other in gilded stucco.'

'Well, have them carved, then.'

'Can't afford it, as I said.'

'But my dear Dane! are you going to regulate your whole household on such principles?'

Dane answered with the most matter-of-fact manner, that it was his intention.

'But I should think elegant frames would come under the head of pleasure.'

'They would not, to me, when I thought of the money they cost.'

'But Dane! with your means! Do you know what people will say of you?'

'I know,' he answered. 'The world will always find a nice name for a fellow that does not go by its rules.'

'You are so obstinate!' said the lady. 'You always were. Nothing I could say would ever move you. I shall get Arthur to talk to you. But what does your wife think of your doings?'

Dane was silent, only the corner of his mouth began to play.

'She has stockings on this minute that cost five dollars a pair, if they cost a penny. How does that fit with your wooden picture frames?'

Dane rose and rang the bell. 'You must be tired, Prudentia,' he said without the change of a muscle. 'And Prim is, I know. I shall send you to bed to get a good night's sleep, for you have a great deal to do to-morrow.'

Mrs. Coles did not know how to answer. And the servant appearing, Rollo ordered candles, and himself went with the ladies to the door of their room. There he took leave of Prim, whose face had clouded painfully, with a whispered word which brought a flush of pleasure back to it. It was not yet late. The little travelling clock was only ringing its ten musical silver peals, as Dane came back into the room. Wych Hazel was still standing as the ladies had left her, looking absently down at the picture frame. Dane came silently up and stood beside her.

'Do you think I shall ever stop being perverse?' she said abruptly.

'How are you perverse now?' he asked in a very disengaged tone.

'I have been pretty nearly as perverse as I could be, all these two days!' said Wych Hazel. 'Fighting everybody and everything. I dressed just as much as good taste would let me, because I never can put your friend down in a plain dress. And I have answered five hundred questions.And I never thought about stockings in that way.I thought one must have stockings!' said Hazel, putting out her dainty foot and looking down at it ruefully. But then the brown eyes came eagerly back to him. 'Do you think I shall, Olaf?' she repeated.

Gently, very fondly, he gathered her into his arms and held her close. And without saying a word, his manner gave assurance of contentment enough to satisfy any woman.

'Then you are not going to scold me?' he asked at length, without releasing her.

'For what?'

'Bringing you into such perverse circumstances.'

Hazel looked at him wistfully. 'I knew how it would be,' she said. 'I knew myself. That was why I said no. At least, partly why.'

'Do you regret my action?'

'I was naughty enough yesterday morning to hope you would,' said
Hazel with a confessing laugh.

'I told Prim just now, privately, that if we ever went that journey I spoke of, she should go too.'

The colour flushed up into Hazel's face, and went away again, but she gave neither word nor look.

'You are sorry?'

'Never ask such questions afterwards!' said Hazel. And she would have disengaged herself, but he would not let her. 'Do you not know better than that?'

'Hazel,' he said, gravely though full of tenderness,'you and I are not going to live to ourselves?'

Like a statue, so the girl stood; but with a rush of thoughts that for a minute she could not head off.

'He might live to mejust a little bit,' so they ran. 'That is what I shall do to him,under God,always!'Then tramp, tramp, came the words:

"The man was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man,"and if ever in her life Wych Hazel felt rebellious, she did so then. The old grievance of man's right of way,the fact that it was a right,but with it a softer feeling, hurt and sore, that he could even wish for anybody else but her on such a journey; that her right should not have come in there.

"The moon looks down on many brooks,

"The brook can see no moon but one!"

He might at least have consulted her. Suppose she had asked somebody?Wych Hazel drew half of a very long sigh, choked the rest back, then raised her grave brown eyes, and answered,

'No.'

Did he see what was beneath them? For a peculiar fire leapt into the grey eyes. He spoke in the same tone he had used before.

'Suppose, Hazel, we lose twenty-five per cent. of our pleasure? And suppose Primrose gains a hundred?' He was holding her close and tenderly, looking down into her eyes with all the power of his.

'Well,' said Hazel,'I suppose she would.'

'And I suppose we should. I ask nobody for my pleasure to be a third with us. I suppose it will be a trial to me when we go home, to have Heinert at the dinner table and talking to me in the evening. And yet, Hazel, just because you are so much to me, I dare not but pour pleasure into every cup I see standing empty; even though I let a few drops of my own go.'

She answered softly 'Yes,'yet was very near adding, 'But you are spilling _mine!'_It was rather hard. Would he be always doing such things, over the head of her pleasure? But in the new life and purpose awake in her, Wych Hazel had found a new set of answers to trouble some questions. If the answers were also sometimes difficult, they were at least conclusive. And now, as she stood there, these words came:

"For even Christ pleased not himself."

"Even,"what was she, to set up her pleasure against anybody's good? A quiver crept round her lips for a minutebut then she looked up and laughed.

'I am just as perverse as I can be, to-night,' she said. 'Stroked all the wrong way. That disposes of everything.'

Rollo bent and pressed his lips to those soft trembling ones, and still holding her fast, caressed face and hair with the free hand; his face shewing more delight in her than Hazel was in a condition to observe; though the tenderness of tone and touch spoke their own language.

'Hazel' he said softly.

She looked up, listening.

'I am curious about something.'

'I cannot say I shall be happy to gratify your curiosity, until I know what it is about.'

'It concerns the question, how you are going to ask my pardon for the thought that has been in your head?'

'I am not going to do it.'

'You ought. And you know that what you ought, you always, sooner or later,do.'

'Ought I?' said Wych Hazel. 'Is it one of your prerogatives to have your pardon asked without cause?' But then she laid her face against his, in a way that was extremely womanish and not a bit self-asserting.

Rollo stood still and added no more. He had read what was going on in her thoughts, and he knew that she was mistaken; but he also knew that words prove nothing, and as before, he waited. Only as at last he let her out of his arms, he said lightly,

'You will not lose anything in the long run, Hazel. People never do, by doing right.'