Wych Hazel

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

CHAPTER XXIV.

THE LOSS OF ALL THINGS.

'And how do you like your new neighbour, Prim?' said the young Dr. Maryland the first night of his return home. He had talked all tea-time to the collective family without once mentioning Miss Kennedy's name, and now put the question to his sister as they sat alone together in the twilight.

'O Arthur, very much.'

'You see a good deal of her?' was the next question, asked after a pause.

'Y—es,' said Primrose, doubtfully, 'At least, when I am with her I think I do; when I am away from her it seems little.'

'I must ride over there and call, to-morrow,' said Dr. Arthur.
'Will you go too?'

And so it fell out that Dingee was summoned to the door next day to usher in the party.

'Yes'm, Miss Ma'land—Miss Hazel, she in, sure!—singin' to herself in de red room,'— and Dingee led the way.

It was a new room to most of the guests. A room that seemed two sides woodland and one side sunshine. Walls with deep crimson hangings, and carpets of the same hue; and quaint old carved oak chairs and tables, and a bookcase or two, and oaken shelves and brackets against the crimson of the walls. The morning had been cool enough, there at Chickaree, for a wood fire, though only the embers remained now; and in front of where the fire had been, sat the young mistress of the house half hid in a great arm-chair. Soft white folds fell all around her, and two small blue velvet slippers took their ease upon a footstool; with white laces giving their cobweb finish here, there and everywhere. A book was in her hand, and on her shoulder the grey kitten purred secure, in spite of the silky curls which now and then made puss into a pillow. Now and then. For while Miss Kennedy sometimes made believe to read, an sometimes really sang—pouring out scraps of song like a wild bird—yet in truth her attention was oftenest given to the great picture which hung in one recess. And then her head went down upon the grey kitten. Just now, when the visitors came in, she was searching for the notes of that last song at Mrs. Powder's; trying apparently, to catch it and bring it back; her girl's voice endeavouring to represent that which her girl's heart had never known.

The picture—I may describe it here—was that of a young man bound to a tree and pierced with arrows. No human witnesses in sight, except in the extreme distance; and over sky and earth no sunlight, but instead the deepening shadows of night. But the presence of the one was not noticed, nor the presence of the other missed. Away from earth, and lifted above suffering, the martyr's eyes looked to the opening clouds above his head, where were light, and heavenly messengers, and the palm- branch, and the crown. Something in the calm clear face checked Miss Kennedy's bursts of song as often as she turned that way—the high look so beyond her reach.

'What are you doing, Hazel?' said Prim's sweet voice.

'Puzzling,'—said Hazel, jumping up, and lifting one hand to support the kitten. 'Dr. Maryland, I am very glad to see you! O Prim, how happy you must be!'

'You didn't look in the least like a person in a puzzle,' said Primrose, after the first compliments were passed. 'What could you be puzzling about, dear?'

'That picture. It always puzzles me. And so when I get befogged over other things, I often come here and add this to the number.'

'You are hardly far enough on in your studies yet, Miss Kennedy, to understand that picture,' said Dr. Arthur, who was considering it very intently himself.

'My studies! Painting, do you mean? Or what do you mean?' said
Wych Hazel.

'What does the picture say to you, Miss Kennedy?'

'That is just what I cannot find out,' said Hazel, jumping up again and coming to stand at his side. 'I cannot read it a bit.'

'You have not learned the characters in which it is written, yet,' said Dr. Arthur, with a glance at her.

'She had not learned much,' said Primrose, smiling.

'Can you read it?' said Hazel, facing round.

'Why yes, Hazel.'

'Well,' said the girl, half impatiently, 'then how come I to be such an ignoramus?'

'There are some things,' said Dr. Arthur, with another swift look at his companion, 'which everybody can learn at once. But there are others, Miss Kennedy, which sometimes must wait until the Lord himself sets the lesson. I think this is one of those.'

'I shall ask your father,' said Hazel, decidedly. 'He always thinks I ought to know everything at once.'

'Oh, Hazel, my dear, how can you say so?' cried Prim. 'Indeed, papa is never so unreasonable. And there he is this minute, and you can ask him.'

The long windows of the room looked upon a stretch of greensward spotted with trees. Coming across this bit of the grounds, Dr. Maryland and Rollo saw one of the windows open, and caught sight also of the party within. Even as Dr. Maryland's daughter spoke, they stepped upon the piazza and came into the room.

'That is a picture of the loss of all things,' Dr. Arthur was saying. 'How would you be able to understand?' But then he stepped back, and left the explanation in other hands.

' "The loss of all things!" ' Hazel repeated, bewildered. 'How do you do, Mr. Rollo?—Dr. Maryland, there is always some special reason why I am especially glad to see you!'

'What is the reason now, my dear?' said the doctor, with a very benign look on his face.

'These two people,' said Wych Hazel, with an airy gesture of her head towards her other guests, 'find me in a puzzle and push me further in. And I want to be pulled out.'

'In what direction shall I pull?' asked the doctor.

'Well, sir,—O Mr. Rollo, don't you want the cat?—I know you like cats,' said Hazel, 'and she is in my way.—It is only about my old picture here, Dr. Maryland, which they pretend to understand. Dr. Arthur says it means "the loss of all things,"—and that does not clear up my ideas in the least. Why must I "wait" to know what it means?' she added, linking her hands on the Doctor's arm, and raising her eager, vivid face to his. 'Prim says I "don't know much"—but I do not see why that should hinder my learning more.'

How strong the contrast with the martyr's face! how high and still and calm the look of him who had overcome! How tender, how open to sorrow, how susceptible of loss, that of the girl on whom as yet the rough winds had not blown! Dr. Arthur's eyes went soberly from one to the other. Rollo had taken the little cat from its position on its mistress's shoulder, and now stood with it established on his own, quietly and somewhat gravely attending to what was going on.

'What do you want to learn, my dear?' said Dr. Maryland, on his part gazing at the picture now.

'That picture always perplexes me,' said Hazel. 'What does it mean? And why do I love it so much, not knowing what it means?'

Standing and looking at the picture, Dr. Maryland answered in the words of Paul: ' "What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." '

'But papa,' said Primrose, 'that doesn't tell her what it means. Didn't Arthur say right—"The loss of all things"?'

'It means,' said Dr. Maryland,—'Human weakness and God's strength. Human emptiness and God's fulness. Earthly defeat and heavenly victory. How should you understand it, my dear, who have not begun the fight yet?'

'But then, papa, why does she love it so much?'

Dr. Maryland hesitated, and it was Rollo who answered:

'Because the fight is in her.'

'That's a queer way of putting it,' said Dr. Maryland; 'but perhaps it's true. I hope it is.'

The girl gave a swift look over her shoulder which it is to be hoped Mr. Rollo liked, as it was meant for him. So sparkling with the joy of being understood, so stirred with that sudden new life and purpose which appreciation wakes up in some natures. It was but an instant—then her eyes came back to Dr. Maryland, and were all quiet again. He did not think so, evidently. Which was right? Of what did he doubt her capable?

'Weakness,' 'emptiness,' 'defeat,' she said, recalling his words. 'Is that what I am to find?'

'You do not think it possible,' said Dr. Maryland.

'How should she, papa?' said Primrose.

'Well, my dear, it is not possible she should. And yet, Hazel, these are the only way to find strength, fulness, and victory. It is a problem to you, my dear; only to be worked out.'

'Does every one work it out, papa?'

'No, my dear; two thirds of men never do. And so they go on forever saying, "Who will shew us any good?" '

'He did not find defeat,' said Hazel, looking at the martyr's face, and somehow forgetting the arrows and the cords.

'The story is,' said Dr. Maryland, 'that he was an officer, high in trust and command, in the service of the Emperor (Diocletian.). For owning himself a Christian, he was stripped of power and place, delivered into the will of his enemies, to be bound to a tree and shot to death with arrows. There is the human defeat, my dear Hazel. What you see in the face there, is the mental victory;—some of the struggle, too.'

' "Mental victory" '—she said half to herself, considering the words. 'I ought to be equal to that. Did you mean "defeat," Dr. Arthur, by "the loss of all things?" '

'No,' said Dr. Arthur, 'I meant anything but that. I meant nothing worse than the exchange of a handful of soiled paper for both the hands full of solid gold.'

'Ah you all talk such riddles!' said the girl, knitting her brows. 'What would it be to me, I mean? That I should lose Chickaree?—but that is impossible.'

'It was said,' Dr. Maryland answered,—'and the Lord said it— "Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot by my disciple." '

'Yes, sir, but—' she said quickly,—then checked herself.

'Well, my dear? My words will come best in answer to your questions, for then they can meet the very point of your difficulty.'

'You will not think me disrespectful, sir?—I was going to say, you do not do that'—said Hazel, hesitating over her words. 'None of you. You have Prim and Dr. Arthur,—and Dr. Arthur comes home, and then Prim has her brother. And there is the pretty house, and books, and engravings. I don't know anything about Mr. Rollo, of course,' she said, correcting herself, 'but I mean the rest of you.'

'May we sit down?' said Dr. Maryland, 'Dane and I have walked up from Mr. Falkirk's. Unless Dane likes to stand to accommodate the cat!' said the doctor with a humourous glance at the shoulder where pussy sat with shut eyes, purring contentedly. 'It's a fair question, Hazel; and an easy mistake. But my dear, so far as I know, Prim and Arthur and I have not kept anything. For myself,' said Dr. Maryland, lifting up a bright face, 'all that I have is my Master's. I am not the owner even of myself. So long as his service bids me use the things entrusted to me in the way I am doing, I will use them so. And whenever his honour, or his work, calls me to give up anything or everything of all these—my home, my children, or my own life—I am ready; it is the Lord's now; he shall do with them all what he will. Do you understand?'

'And Arthur and I would say the same,' added Primrose.

Her brother answered in the words so long age written, so many
times lived out. ' "Not a myself—but Christ; not a my will—but
Christ. Not a mine ease, or my profit, or my pleasure, but
Christ." '

The girl looked from one to the other, as each spoke, with a flash of sympathy; even as thoughts stir and kindle at the sound of a bugle call, while yet they know not what it says. But then she turned suddenly round and looked at Rollo. An expectant look, that waited for him to speak,—that gathered—or he fancied so—a shade of disappointment as it turned away again to the face on the wall. She sat silent, leaning her chin upon her hands. His look had been perfectly grave, thoughtful and quiet; but otherwise did not reveal itself. There was a general silence. Then Dr. Maryland said,

'Do you understand the paradox, my dear?'

'I think I must be the paradox myself,' Hazel answered with a half laugh. 'I could do that—I could bear the arrows: I think I could. But you never saw anybody, sir, that liked giving up— anything—less than I do.'

'You would rather bear the arrows than the cords,' said Dr.
Arthur Maryland. 'It is easier.'

'Depends on the people,' said Primrose.

' "As having nothing, and yet possessing all things," ' Dr.
Maryland added rather dreamily.

'I suppose,' said Rollo, with a moment's deep look into Wych
Hazel's eyes, 'the free spirit is beyond bonds.'

'That is it, my boy!' exclaimed Dr. Maryland. 'Think—when Paul and Silas were in the dungeon at Philippi—a dreary place, most likely; and they, beaten and bleeding and sore, stretched and confined in the wooden frame which I suppose left them not one moment's ease,—at midnight it was, they fell to such singing and praising that the other prisoners waked up and listened to hear the song.'

Hazel crossed her slender wrists and sat looking at them, imagining the bonds.

'Do you think it is all in me?' she said, with another sudden appeal to Rollo.

Rollo was not a man fond of wearing his heart upon his sleeve. Another momentary glance went through her eyes, as it were, and was withdrawn, before he gave a short, grave 'yes.' Hazel went back to her musings without another word, and only the least bit of a triumphant curl about the corners of her mouth.

'I wonder how it would feel?' she said, crossing and uncrossing her hands.

'What?' said Primrose.

'Bonds—and chains,' said the girl, clasping her wrist tight.
'To have my hands tied!'

'You are not called upon to find out, my dear,' said Dr. Maryland; 'that is not required of you. But remember, Hazel, no bonds are heavy but love wears.'

'Depends upon how they get on, sir,' she said, quickly.

'What?' said the doctor, with a somewhat comic twinkle coming into his eye. 'How is that?'

'I hate bonds, Dr. Maryland!—from the very bottom of my heart.'

'You have never worn the sort I spoke of, my dear,' he said, smiling. 'I never heard anybody complain of them.'

'What sort?' said Hazel. 'Bonds are bonds.'

'But love likes her bonds,' said the doctor.

The girl shook her head. 'She likes her way, sir! in my case. When Mr. Falkirk forbids me to—well, no matter what,—to do something,' she said, dropping her eyes, 'I do suppose I obey better than if I didn't love him. But I hate it all the same. It makes me feel—like my name,' she added with a laugh.

'Love likes her bonds,' the doctor repeated, shaking his head.

'And the arrow that is weighted flies freest against the wind,' Rollo remarked.

'What do you mean by that?' said Primrose. 'Duke, you look very funny with that cat upon your shoulder.'

'Pussy likes it,' said Rollo.

'Dane, have you finished your business with Hazel?' said Dr.
Maryland. 'I must be going presently.'

'Well, sir,—if Prim and Arthur will excuse me.'

He brought himself, pussy cat and all, to a chair by Wych
Hazel's side. The others drew off a little.

'I am going away,' he said. 'Business takes me to New York for a week or two. Possibly to Chicago; but I hope not. I hope to bring your horses back with me. Do you want to give me any directions respecting them?'

'Directions?—I think not. O yes!' said Hazel, touching her fingers to the cat's head and instantly withdrawing them,—'I want my pony to be very fast. Because——' but there she stopped.

'Well?' said he.

'That is all.'

'It is unfinished.'

'Cannot you do anything without knowing why?'

'Unbusinesslike. But I'll do my best.'

'Well,'—said Hazel, 'I told Mr. Falkirk.—Of course I like to go fast, for its own sake,—and then if I ever had to ride for my life!'—

It was spoken so demurely that only her cheeks betrayed her.
Over their treason the girl grew impatient.

'I just want a fast horse. Don't you know what that means, without explanation?'

'Why no,' said he, probably enjoying his advantage though he held it after his usual undemonstrative fashion. Excepting that his eyes took a further advantage which none others ever did. No flattery in them, nor conventional deference, and nothing like Dr. Maryland's benign regard, or Mr. Falkirk's watchful one. Those eyes went down into hers with a sort of grave taking possession, or holding it; something more than benignity, and coming much nearer than watchfulness. Rollo's manner had often an indefinable tinge of the same expression. 'There are so many sorts of fast horses,' he went on. 'Do you want to run for your life? or canter? or trot?'

'Trot in ordinary—run upon occasion.'

'Is trotting your favourite gait?'

'It is more like the wind,' said Wych Hazel. 'I remember one good canter—but all the rest made one think of the snail that went forward three feet and back two.'

'You must have had an experience! I'll try and secure both for you; but I may not be able, just at first. Don't you want to take pussy in safe keeping again? I am afraid she would not approve of my further companionship.'

'Well—give her to me then,' she said, holding out her hands. He smiled a little at that, dislodged pussy and placed her in them, then rose up and offered his own.

A party of gentlemen came up the steps as Dr. Maryland and his companions went down. Clearly, the thoughtful time of the morning was at an end.