Wych Hazel

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

CHAPTER XLI.

A LESSON.

This visit and talk gave Hazel a great deal to ponder. The work, and—the doer of it; and—did he ever think of her, she questioned, in the doing? And did he expect to make her 'stand, as he had the bay'? and come, if he but 'snapped his fingers'? On the whole, Miss Wych did not feel as if she were developing any hidden stores of docility at present!—not at present; and one or two new questions, or old ones in a new shape, began to fill her mind; inserting themselves between the leaves of her Schiller, peeping cunningly out from behind 'reason' and 'instinct' and 'the wings of birds'; dancing and glimmering and hiding in the firelight. Mr. Falkirk might have noticed, about this time, that Miss Wych was never ready to have the gas lit.

The gas was lit, however, and the tea-tray just brought in, when one evening a few nights after the visit last recorded, Rollo himself was announced. Notwithstanding all Mrs. Coles had prognosticated, he seemed very much like himself both in face and manner; he came in and talked and took his place at the table, just as he had been used to do at Chickaree. Not even more grave than he had often been there.

It was not the first time Wych Hazel had confessed to herself that tea trays are a great institution; nor the first time she had found shelter behind her occupation. Very demurely she poured out the tea, and listened sedately to the talk between the gentlemen; but it was with extra gravity that she at last put her fingers in. She never could guess afterwards how she had dared.

'Do you think he looks much like a ruined man, Mr. Falkirk?' she said, in one of the pauses of their talk.

A flash of lightning quickness and brightness came to her from Rollo's eyes. Mr. Falkirk lifted his dumbly, not knowing how to take the girl. He had not, so far in the talk, touched the subject of Mrs. Coles' communications, though no doubt they had not been out of his mind for one instant. But somehow, Mr. Falkirk had lacked inclination to call his younger coadjutor to account, and probably was hopeless of effecting any supposable good by so doing. Now he stared wonderingly up at Wych Hazel. She was looking straight at him, awaiting an answer; but fully alive to the situation, and a little bit frightened thereat, and with the fun and the confusion both getting into her face in an irresistible way. Mr. Falkirk's face went down again with a grunt, or a growl; it was rather dubious in intent. Rollo's eyes did not waver from their inquisition of Wych Hazel's face. It was getting to be hot work!—Hazel touched her hand bell, and turned away to give orders, and came back to her business; sending Mr. Falkirk a cup of tea that was simply scalding. Her bravery was done for that time.

'What have you been doing this winter?' Mr. Falkirk finally concluded to ask.

'Investing in new stock,' Rollo answered carelessly.

'Don't pay, does it?'

'I think it will. Money is worth what you can get out of it, you know.'

'Pray, if I may ask, what do you expect to get out of it in this way?'

'Large returns'—said Rollo very calmly.

'I don't see it,' said Mr. Falkirk. 'I hope you do; but I can't.'

'You have not the elements to make a perfect calculation.'

Rollo, it was plain, understood himself, and was in no confusion on the subject. Mr. Falkirk, either in uncertainty or in disgust, declined to pursue it. He finished his tea, and then, perhaps, feeling that he had no right to keep watch over his brother guardian, much to Wych Hazel's discomfiture, he took up his book and marched away.

Rollo left the table and came round then to a seat by her side.

'What have you been doing this winter?' he asked, putting the question with his eyes as well as with his words.

'Making old stock pay,'—said the girl, looking down at her folded hands; she was not of the calm sisterhood who hide themselves in crochet.

'Perhaps you will be so good as to enlarge upon that.'

Hazel sent back the first answer that came to her tongue, and the next: it was no part of her plan to have herself in the foreground.

'This is a fair average specimen of our tea-drinkings,' she said. 'And the mornings are hardly more eventful. Just lately, Mr. Falkirk has been a good deal disturbed about you. Or else he was easy about you, and disturbed about your doings,—he has such a confused way of putting things. But we heard you had copied my "hurricane track," ' said Miss Wych, folding her hands in a new position.

'And were you disturbed about my doings?'

'I? O no. I am never disturbed with what you do to anybody but me.'

Rollo did not choose to pursue that subject. He plunged into another.

'I should like to explain to you some of my doings; and I must go a roundabout way to do it. Miss Hazel, do you read the Bible much?'

'Much?' she said with a sudden look up. 'What do you call "much?" '

He smiled at her. 'Are you in the habit of studying it?'

'As I study other things I do not know?—Not often. Sometimes,' said Wych Hazel, thinking how often she had gone over that same ninety-first Psalm.

'What is your notion of religion?—as to what it means?'

She glanced up at him again, almost wondering for a moment if his wits were 'touched.' Then seeing his eyes were undoubtedly sane and grave, set her own wits to work.

'It means,' she answered slowly after a pause, 'to me, different things in different people. All sorts of contradictions, I believe!—In mamma, as they tell of her, it meant everything beautiful, and loving, and loveable, and tender. And it puts Dr. Maryland away off—up in the sky, I think. And it just blinds Prim, so that she cannot comprehend common mortals. And it seems to open Gyda's eyes, so that she does understand—like mamma. And—I do not know what it means in you, Mr. Rollo!'

'You never saw it in me.'

'No.'

'Let me give you a lesson to study,' said he. 'Something I have been studying lately a good deal. I must take this minute before we are interrupted. Have you got a Bible here?'

She sprang up and brought her own from the next room, with a certain quick way as if she were excited; Rollo took it and turned over the leaves, then placed it before her open.

'I have heard you read the Bible once. Read now those two verses.'

"For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again."—2 Cor. v. 14, 15.

Wych Hazel read the words slowly, softly,—then look[ed] up at him again.

'Is that what it means in you?' she said.

'What do the words imply, for anybody?' he said, with his eyes going down into hers as they did sometimes, like as if they would get at the yet unspoken thoughts. But hers fell again to the book.

'I suppose, they should mean—what they say,' she answered in the same slow fashion. 'But what that is,—or at least would be,—I do not very well know.'

'If One died for me,—if it is because of his love and death for me that I live at all,—to whom do I properly belong? myself, or him?'

'Well, and then?' she said, passing the question as answered.

'Then a good many things,' he said, smiling again. 'Suppose that he, to whom I belong, has work that he wants done,— suppose there are people he wants taken care of and helped,—if I love him and if I belong to him, what shall I like to do?'

'What you are doing, I suppose,' said Hazel, with a little undefined twinge that came much nearer jealousy than she guessed.

'That is very plain, and perfectly simple, isn't it?'

'It sounds so.'—And glancing furtively at the bright, clear face, she added to herself Dr. Maryland's old words: 'Love likes her bonds!'—That was plain too.

'Then another question. If I belong to this One whom I love, does not all that I have belong to him too?'

'But it was not I who said you were ruining yourself,' said the girl in her quick way. 'I liked it.'

'Did you?' said he, with one of his flashes of eye. 'But I am giving you a lesson to study. I am not justifying myself. Answer my question. Does not all I have belong to that One, who loves me and whom I love?'

She bowed her head in assent. Somehow the words hurt her.

'So that, whatever I do, I cannot be said to give him anything? It is all his already. I am asking you a business question. I want you to answer just as it appears to you.'

'How can it appear but in one way?' said Hazel. 'That must be true, of course.'

'Very well. That is clear. Now suppose further that my Lord has left me special directions about what he wants done to these people I spoke of—am I not to take the directions exactly as they stand, without clipping?'

'Yes.'

He put his hand upon the book which lay before her, and turned back the leaves to the third chapter of Luke; there indicated a verse and bade her read again.

' "He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none." '

'What does that mean?' asked Rollo.

'What it says—if it means anything, I suppose.'

Again Rollo put his hand upon the leaves, turning further back still till he reached the book of Isaiah. And then he gave Wych Hazel these words to read:

'Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every joke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thine house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?'

'How are the commands to be met?' Rollo asked gravely when she had done.

'Why, you have found out!' said Hazel. 'I knew you would go off on a crusade after that October sky, Mr. Rollo.'

He seemed half to forget his subject, or to merge it, in a deep, thoughtful gaze at her for a few moments, over which a smile gradually broke.

'To come back to our lesson,' he said,—'are not these commands to be taken au pied de la lettre?'

'They can hardly be the one exception among commands, I should think,'—with a little arch of her eyebrows.

'Then I am bound, am I not, to undo every heavy burden that I can reach? to loose every bond of wickedness, and to break every yoke, and to remove oppression, in so far as it lies with me to do it? Do you not think so?'

'Why, yes!' said Wych Hazel. 'Does anybody like oppression?'

'Does anybody practise it?'

'I do not know, Mr. Rollo. O yes, of course, in some parts of the world. But I mean here. Yes,—those people used to look as if something kept them down,—and I used to think Mr. Morton might help it, I remember.'

'You are not to suppose that oppression is liked for its own sake. That is rarely the case, even in this world. It is for the sake of what it will bring, like other wrong things. But a question more. Can I do all I can, without giving and using all I have for it?'

'That is self-evident.'

'Then it only remains, how to use what I have to the best advantage.'

'Well, even Mr. Falkirk admits you are a good business man,' said Hazel, laughing a little.

'How are you for a business woman?'

'Nobody has ever found out. Of course I consider myself capable of anything. But then business never does come into my hands, you know.'

'This business does.'

'Does it? the business of caring for other people?—Last summer Dr. Maryland read a terrible text about the "tears of the oppressed, and they had no comforter." It haunted me for a while. But I could do nothing. No,—one must have more right of way than I have—yet.'

'I do not mean the business simply of caring for other people. I mean the whole course of action, beginning from those first words you read.'

'You know,' she said quietly, 'I have never tried.'

'Will you study the lesson I have set you?'

'The one you have been learning?'

'Yes. The one contained in these verses you have read. Shall I do harm if I mark this book?'

'No.'—The word came quick, under breath.

He turned to the different places where she had been reading, and carefully marked the passages; then sought out and likewise marked several others. 'Will you study the lesson out?' he asked as he was busy with the last marking.

'I will try—I think,' she answered slowly. 'As well as I know how.'

'Do not fancy,' he said, smiling as he shut the book, 'that the care of the needy, in any shape, is religion; nor think that He who loves us will take anything as a substitute for our whole-hearted love to him. If we give him that, he will let us know in what way we may shew it.'

She made no answer except by another swift look. This was
Chaldee to her! He let the silence last a little while.

'Now I have asked you so many questions,' he said, 'I should like it if you would ask me a few.'

'What about?'

'All subjects are open to you!'

'How did you contrive to make the bay "stand"?'

The flash of Rollo's eye came first.

'How do you know I did?' he said laughing. 'But that is no answer. Let me see. I believe, first I made him know that he must mind me; and secondly, I persuaded him into loving me. All that remained, was to let him understand that I wanted him to be immovable when I was not on his back.'

'O, but!—' said Hazel hastily,—the sentence ending in crimson cheeks, and the shyest veil of reserve dropped over her face.

'I might question here,' said Rollo in an amused tone, and eyeing her inquisitively; 'but I have done it so often,—I leave the ground to you. What next?'

'What next' seemed to have flown away.

'Does Collingwood engross all the thoughts that go back to
Chickaree?'

A sidelong glance of the brown eyes was all that Mr. Rollo got by that venture.

How is Trüdchen?' she asked gravely.

'Flourishing. Asks after you whenever she gets a chance.'

'Mrs. Boërresen of course is well, as she has had you to look after?'

'Gyda is happy. It is a comfort to her to have to make fladbrod for two.'

'It must be a comfort to you to eat it!—How is poor Mr. Morton? I felt for him when I heard you had turned his world upside down.'

'What did you feel for him?' said Rollo quite innocently.

'You have asked all your questions. I think it would be proper now,' said Wych Hazel, folding her hands and controlling the curling lips, 'that you should go on and tell me all there is to be told, and save me the trouble of asking any more.'

'I do not wish to save you the trouble.'

'It is good practice occasionally to do what you do not wish.
Instructive. And full of suggestion.'

'Suggestion of what?'

'Try, and you will know. I doubt if you ever did try,' said
Wych Hazel.

'I tried it last night and yesterday morning, when I was turned away from your door with the announcement that you were out.'

'But you did not leave your name!' said Hazel, looking up.

'I found it "suggestive" too,' Rollo went on. 'I do not know whether you would like me to tell you all the things which it suggested.'

'How is everybody else at home?' said Hazel, changing her ground. 'I heard Miss May had been sick.'

The answer tarried, for Mr. Falkirk came in, and perhaps Rollo forgot it, or knew that Wych Hazel had; for it was never given. He entered into talk with Mr. Falkirk; and did his part well through the rest of the evening. Then, Mr. Falkirk expressing the surmise, it was hardly put in the form of a hope, that they would see him to breakfast or dinner, Rollo averred that he was going immediately home. He had done his work in town, and could not tarry. No remark from the lady of the house met that. Indeed she had been sitting in the silentest of moods, letting the gentlemen talk; having enough to think of and observe. For absence does change, even an intimate friend, and both lifts and drops a veil. Old characteristics stand out with new clearness; old graces of mind or manner strike one afresh; but the old familiarity which once in a sort took possession of all this, is now withdrawn a little,—we stand off and look. And so, secretly, modestly, shyly, Wych Hazel studied her young guardian that night. But when he had risen to go, the faintest little touch from one of her finger tips drew him a step aside.

'I said I would study that,' she began. 'But it seems to me you explained it all as you went along. What is there left to study?'

The grave penetrating eyes she met and had to meet once, gave all the needed force to his answer.—'Your part, Miss Hazel.' He stood looking at her a minute; and then he went away.

If when Rollo had entered he room where she was, that evening, the instant feeling had been that he must come often: perhaps the after feeling was that he could not stand much of this doubtful and neutral intercourse. For he did as he had promised; left her, practically, to Mr. Falkirk, and came not to town again during all the rest of that winter.