Wych Hazel

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

CHAPTER XXVI.

IN THE ROCKAWAY.

When, however, a little later, that young lady came forth to her carriage, attended as usual by a retinue of servitors, a single figure was standing by her carriage door. He stood aside to let the devotees put Wych Hazel into the little rockaway which was her sole present equipage; but when the last words had been said and the last man stepped back, Rollo stood at the door before Dingee had time to shut it.

'Will you give me a seat as far as Mr. Falkirk's?' he said, looking in.

Now when you have not seen a person for six weeks or so, a request for a seat in your carriage is not generally the opening remark, and Wych Hazel paused in a sort of astonishment. Then another thing made her hesitate.

'If you will answer it to Mr. Falkirk,' she said. 'You know I am forbidden to give any one a seat in my carriage. Have you a special permit, Mr. Rollo?'

'I never ask for what I cannot have,' he said, jumping in. And then he offered her his hand. 'How do you do?'

'Very well. I should think that must make you an adept in
Prim's beloved art of waiting,' said Wych Haze.

'If the lesson must be learnt, I would rather wait before asking. After that, I believe I do not know how to practise it. How do you feel about waiting for your horses?'

'Feeling is dead, and impatience is all tired out with hard work and want of sympathy. So it is pretty quiet just now.'

'Want of sympathy?' he said, inquiringly.

'Yes. I used to fume about it a little, but Mr. Falkirk only said "My dear," and a few other things of a cooing nature.'

'I believe I have brought you what you will like.'

'O, have you?' said the girl, with her musical intonations, and a degree of eagerness which spoke impatience in fair condition. 'You are very good to take so much trouble, Mr. Rollo! But I am more glad than you can imagine.'

'Then I am very glad,' said he. 'Will you trust me to drive you the rest of the way, if I displace Mr. Gotham? I share your infirmity of impatience sometimes.'

'An infirmity, you call it?—Well, displace anybody you like, but me,' said Wych Hazel, arranging herself in a small luxury of fatigue against the not too luxurious back of the rockaway. Her companion was silent a few minutes until the carriage passed out from the Moscheloo grounds and had gone a few rods; then he tapped Mr. Falkirk's factotum on the shoulder.

'Mr. Gotham,' said he, in tones of pleasant authority, 'I can't stand anybody's driving but my own to-night. Stop, if you please. You and Dingee may take a place with my man; my trap is just behind. Tell him to keep close and follow.'

'Sorry to do h'anything that looks un'ansome, sir,' said Gotham, swallowing his surprise with the adroitness of long practice, 'but I 'ave Miss 'Azel in charge, sir.'

'You had, my friend. I will relieve you. Come, jump out, and don't keep your young lady waiting.' The voice was of calm authority which most people understand and obey. And Wych Hazel laughed.

'I'm sure I can't say what Mr. Falkirk will think, sir!' said Gotham, in a displeased voice. ' 'Owever—I will h'assume it's h'all right, sir.—Though why he couldn't drive his h'own team, if he'd such an 'ankering for the ribbands,' he muttered to Dingee as he got down, 'I'm sure is a perplexity.'

'Wanted to drive Missee Hazel,' said Dingee, climbing like a cat into the other conveyance, and proceeding to drive Mr. Rollo's man nearly out of his wits. 'You never does sound de gen'lman, Mas' Gotham. Telled you so long ago.'

Having got his wish, Mr. Rollo drove regularly enough for a mile or two; till all carriages going their way had passed before or dropped behind or turned off, and they had the road entirely to themselves. The moon was riding high, and though an old moon, gave enough light to make driving a thing of no difficulty. Thus far Rollo had driven in comparative silence, with only a word or two occasionally to Wych Hazel. He had not removed himself by any means out of her companionship, but throwing himself sideways on the front seat of the carriage, looked sometimes out and sometimes in. Now, when the road was their own, and the old horse could find his way along with very little guiding, and the moonlight seemed to illuminate nothing so much as the stillness, Rollo turned his head and spoke.

'Miss Kennedy, do you like to have people come suing to you with petitions?'

'I think I might—if I could answer them myself,' she said, thinking of some that had been preferred that night. 'But when my yes or no depends on somebody else, it is rather stupid. One tires of a perpetual referee at one's back.'

'This depends on nobody but you. But I am rushing into the middle of things,' said Rollo, giving the old steed an intimation that he need not absolutely fall back upon walking. 'Miss Kennedy, I am coming to you with a great petition to- night—and I am too impatient to wait for it.'

'Mr. Rollo with a petition!' said Wych Hazel. 'And impatient!
Well—then why does he wait?'

His voice told well enough why he waited, at least in part; the earnestness of it was so blended with not a little anxiety and not a little tenderness. He spoke slowly.

'Miss Hazel,' he said, 'you have neither father nor mother nor brother nor sister. I am almost as much alone in the world. May I speak to you as one who knows what it means?'

' "It?"—being alone?' she said.

'Just that. Having no one near enough to care or dear enough to dare, what would be for your happiness. As it is so with you, and I know it, may I for once step into the gap, without being too severely punished by you for my venturing?'

'Why I thought you always ventured,—everything!' she said, stirring up now in her surprise.

'Then shall I make my petition? I never dared so much in my life as I am daring now.'

'Of course you may make it,' said Wych Hazel. 'As fast as you like. I shall begin to be impatient too.'

'If you choose to question me for my reasons, I will have the honour to give them. Or if you ask what right I have to move in the matter, I will answer that, too.'

'Beforehand?'

'Certainly. If you wish.'

'No matter,' she said, with a slight laugh which was yet a little disturbed. What was looming up behind this barricade of preliminaries? 'I thought you based your right just now— But never mind. Go on, please.'

He was silent nevertheless a minute, while the old horse came to an unchallenged slow walk. Then Rollo ungloved his right hand and held it out.

'I cannot see your face,' said he. 'Give me your hand, so that
I may know, while I hold it, that you are not displeased.'

'Why, Mr. Rollo?' said Hazel, with the same half laugh, 'you are very—extraordinary! It strikes me your one petition covers a good many. Must I take the glove off?—if you are to be indulged.'

'There!' said he, taking her hand in the same warm firm grasp she had known before. 'I am going to ask you to promise me something—that it will not be pleasant to promise. Miss Hazel'—speaking low and slowly—'do not dance round dances any more!'

The tone was low, also it was very earnest and very grave.

'What?' she said, in a sort of but half comprehending way. 'Why not? what is the matter with them? I am hardly the least bit tired.'

'You don't know!' he said, with a slight pressure of the hand he held. 'You don't know. This is why not, Miss Hazel—that I would not see my sister in them. Do you understand?'

'O yes,' she answered. 'I have seen people before who did not like dancing,—two or three, perhaps. But there is always somebody to dislike everything, I think. You do not enjoy it yourself, Mr. Rollo,—and so you do not know.'

'I have danced twenty dances where you have danced one. I know what they are made of. You only know how they look.'

'Hardly that,' said Wych Hazel. 'I know a little how they feel. I have never had an outside view, I believe.'

'Can you do me the great honour to take my view,—and my word for it?'

'If you liked flying to music as well as I do, you would take mine,' she said. 'Air is better than earth, when you can get it.'

'Do you think I would wish to interfere with your pleasure, or presume to interfere with your actions, without reasons so strong that I can hardly express their significance? Believe me, if you knew these round dances as well as I know them, you would never be mixed up in one of them any more.'

'Mixed up?' said Wych Hazel. 'Do you suppose I do all the wild things some people do, Mr. Rollo?'

'No,' he said; but he left his plea standing.

'Well then what is the matter? If ever you hear of my "exchanging hospitalities," I will give you leave for a lecture a mile long.'

'Your eyes are innocent eyes and do not see. Can you not trust me far enough to act upon my knowledge, and distrust yours?'

'But trusting you does not make me distrust myself,' she said. 'And even Prim confessed to me once that you do occasionally make mistakes.'

'I do not in this,' said he, very gravely. 'Yet there is no particular reason why you should believe me. Miss Kennedy—you cannot continue this pastime, and keep yourself.'

'What do you mean?' she said quickly.

'You cannot remain just what you are.'

'Mr. Falkirk thinks there is room for improvement,' said Wych Hazel, with some coldness; 'but your words seem to point the other way. Perhaps you will be kind enough to tell me at once all that you think it needful I should hear in the connexion.'

'You need not take that tone,' he said; 'but perhaps I must displease you. Miss Kennedy, I have always thought of you as one who would never permit a liberty to be taken with her.'

'I am happy that we agree for once,' she said, with a lift of the eyebrows and a voice to match. 'It is precisely the way in which I have always thought of myself.'

'Follow that out!' said he half laughing, and at the same time clasping a little closer the hand he held.

'Well—I have followed it out all my life. I never do, Mr.
Rollo.'

'Not knowingly. But— How shall I tell you!' said he, in a sort of despair. And the old horse found it was necessary for him to move on.

'It must be said!' he broke out again, 'and there is no one but me to do it. Miss Hazel, you allowed liberties to be taken with you to-night.'

The little hand he was holding shrank perceptibly. Not twitching itself away, but as it were withdrawing itself into itself, and away from him. Otherwise she sat absolutely still.

'Unconsciously,' he went on. 'You did not know it. The pleasure of the play kept you from knowing what it implied.'

'Allowed, did you say?'

'Look back and think,' said he, calmly.

'As if they could, without my knowing it!' she exclaimed. 'As if they would!'—

'Look back and think,' he said.

'Well,' said Wych Hazel, 'look back and think! And I find the most extreme deference, and—nothing else that touches the question.'

He drew a sort of short, impatient sigh, and waited a moment.
Then leaned over towards her again and spoke slowly.

'Six weeks ago,' he said, 'two little hands would not come near enough to my shoulder to take the kitten from it. And I loved them for the distance they kept.'

The girl drew suddenly back, freeing her hand now with a swiftness that told of a deep hurt somewhere. For a moment she did not speak—then only a breathless—

'Well?'

'Is that displeasure?' he said.

'When have I shortened the distance?' But the words were defiant with pain, not anger. And Rollo on his part remained perfectly still and perfectly silent, not even seeming to know how the old horse was going to please himself.

Nothing could have been more still, outwardly, than the white- robed figure in the corner,—and nothing need be more inwardly tumultuous.

'If it was an open wagon,' she thought to herself, 'I should jump out—over the back or somewhere!' O this having men talk to one! And what was he talking about? and what had she done?— she who had done nothing! Except—'dance better than ever anybody danced before!' 'For the distance they kept'—and when did not her hands keep their distance from every one! How many times that very evening had she been voted 'cruel,' for refusing some favour which other girls granted freely? Mr. Rollo, too!—who had praised her 'womanliness'—But with that the womanish element prevailed, and there came a quiver of lip, and for an instant her hands were folded across her eyes. Then down again, to hold each other in order.

And yet her hand had been on twenty shoulders that evening, and twenty arms had encircled her!

There was an interval of some length.

'Miss Hazel,' said Rollo at length, and his voice was clear and manly, 'have I offended you?'

'No,'—under her breath. 'I—suppose not.'

'Do you want me to give, if I can, some justification of myself?'

'There is none. Except that you did not mean to say what you said.'

'I meant no justification of my words,' said he, gently but steadily. 'If you want that, it is, that they were spoken to save you from harm.'

'Ah!' she said with a half cry,—then checked herself. 'What else does Mr. Rollo wish to justify?'

'Only my right to speak them;—if you did, as you might,— question it.' He paused a little, and went on. 'I can give you only half of my plea, but half will do. It is, that your father and mother dearly loved mine.'

It was all Hazel could do to bear her mother's name just then. Her hands took a sudden grip of each other, but no answer came. Not for some time: then words low and softly spoken—

'I think I asked for no plea, Mr. Rollo.'

'Then if you are content with it,' said he, in a lighter tone, 'give me your hand once more, only for a moment this time.'

She hesitated—then held it out. He bent down and gave it a swift, earnest kiss; after which he turned his attention to his driving duties, for some time neglected, till Mr. Falkirk's cottage was gained. As he took Wych Hazel out of the carriage, he said,

'It's so late, if you don't forbid me, I am going up to my old friend, Mrs. Bywank, to ask her to give me lodging to-night.'

Hazel bowed her head in token that he might do as he pleased, giving no other reply. But it is safe to say that, by this time, ideas and thoughts and feelings and pain, and—'other things,' as she would have phrased it, were so inextricably mixed up in the girl's head, that she hardly knew which was which and which was not. She walked steadily in,—then gave about two springs to her brown corner room, and locked the door.