Wych Hazel

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

CHAPTER XXVIII.

BREAKFAST FOR THREE.

Mrs. Bywank, inspecting her breakfast table from time to time, certainly had Mr. Rollo's wish in her heart, even though it got no further. And setting on orange marmalade for him, she pleased herself with also setting on honey for her; even though the portrait of a little child was all the sign of her young lady the room could boast. But long habit had made it second nature to watch that face, no matter what else she was about. Mrs. Bywank looked and smiled and sighed, and bent down to see if the honey was perfect. It was late in the morning now: Mr. Rollo's slumbers had been allowed to extend themselves somewhat indefinitely in the direction which most men approve; and still breakfast waited, down stairs; and Mrs. Bywank at the tower window gazed down the slope and over the trees towards Wych Hazel's present abiding place. Not expecting to see her, but watching over her in her heart. So standing, she was hailed by a cheery 'good morning' behind her.

'I suppose people who turn day into night have no right to expect the day will keep its promises to them; but you are better than my deserts, Mrs. Bywank. I see a breakfast table!'

'Always ready for you, Mr. Rollo! And you must be very ready too, by this time,' she said, sounding her whistle down the stairs. 'Was Miss Wych at Oak Hill last night, sir?'

'I had the pleasure of bringing her home.'

'O, did you, sir?' said Mrs. Bywank, with a quick look. 'She told me she meant to go,—but her mind comes about wonderfully sudden sometimes. Here is breakfast, Mr. Rollo. Will you take your old seat?'

'I think it will always come about in the right place at last,' said Rollo, as he complied with the invitation. The old housekeeper drew a sigh, looking up at the little picture.

'My pretty one!' she said. Then applied herself to filling Mr. Rollo's cup. 'Yes, sir, you're right,' she went on after a pause. 'And she never would stop in a wrong one, not a minute, but for just a few things.'

'Mrs. Bywank,' said the young man, 'those few things are all around her.'

'You'd think so if you could hear the serenades I hear,' said the housekeeper, 'and see the flowers—and hear the compliments. She tells them to me sometimes, making fun. But the trouble is with Miss Wych, she never will see the world with any eyes but her own,—and who's to make her?'

A problem which Rollo considered in silence, and probably swallowed instead of his coffee.

'Does she speak freely to you of her impressions, and of what she is doing or going to do?'

'Free as a child, Mr. Rollo! Always tells me what dress she'll wear—and then afterwards how people liked it. And what she does, and what they want her to do. And why her head is not turned,' said Mrs. Bywank, in conclusion, 'puzzles my head, I'm sure. Mere handling so many hearts might do it.'

Mr. Rollo pursued his breakfast rather thoughtfully and nonchalantly for a time.

'Mrs. Bywank, Mrs. Coles is returned.'

'Surely!' said Mrs. Bywank, with a slight start. 'Then she'll make mischief,—or it'll be the first chance she ever missed.'

'And—the world around her is not so simple as your young lady believes.'

'No, no!' said Mrs. Bywank, earnestly. 'Well I know that! But just there comes in another trouble I spoke of,—you can't make her believe it, sir,—and so I'm not sure it's always wise to try.' She paused, in a sort of hesitating way; glancing from her teaspoon to her guest.

'It's not wise to try at all,' said he, smiling—a sort of warm genial smile, which went over the table to his old friend. 'At the same time,'—and his face grew sternly grave,—'it may be desirable to have some other wisdom come in to her help. I wish,—if you are in any doubt or perplexity about anything you hear, and it may be only a little thing that may give you the impression,—I wish you would call me in.'

'Well sir,—that just touches my thought,' said Mrs. Bywank. 'Or my thought that. For I couldn't do it, Mr. Rollo, unless,'—and an unmistakeable look of anxious inquiry came across the table. 'Unless, you know, sir,' she went on, looking away again,—'unless—excuse my freedom—the conditions of the will are to be carried out.' And the old housekeeper called for hot waffles, and otherwise apologized for touching the subject, by quitting it at once. As soon as all this bustle was disposed of, her guest met her eye again with a frank, bright smile.

'The conditions of the will are to be carried out, my friend.'

Mrs. Bywank brought her hands together with a sense of relief and gladness that somehow went to her eyes too, and she was silent a little.

'I did hope it, sir!—And I would far rather apply to you than to Mr. Falkirk. He frets me sometimes,' added the old housekeeper: 'I may say that to you, sir. Now, she's been wild to ride all summer,—and a dozen wild to have her; and Mr. Falkirk has never let her go once. And so long as he does let her go and dance with the same people, I don't for my part see why.'

'Perhaps he does,' said Rollo, rather dryly. 'But I have made the requisite declarations in presence of Mr. Falkirk and Dr. Maryland, and am legally qualified to act, Mrs. Bywank. She does not know anything of this; and it is not best she should— for the present.'

'No sir—by no means,' said Mrs. Bywank, earnestly. 'For if there is anything miss Wych does hate, it is to have a gentleman speak to her about her doings. When that happens she thinks she's supposed to have done something dreadful; and it hurts her more than you would guess, sir. Little child as she was then, she would cry her eyes out over a word from Mr. Kennedy, but her mother might say anything. And it has always been just so with Mr. Falkirk. Only Miss Wych never cries for him. At least nobody ever sees her.'

Now, instead of Mr. Rollo's being alarmed at this, as another man might, it was answered by a certain humourous play of face; a slight significance of lip and air, quite difficult to characterize. It was not arrogant, nor arbitrary; I do not know how to call it masterful; and yet certainly it expressed no dismay and no apprehension. Perhaps it expressed that he intended to be in a different category from other men. Perhaps he thought Mrs. Bywank meant to read him a cautionary lesson.

'She is in rather a hard position,' he said, gravely. 'I am glad she has got a good friend in you, Mrs. Bywank. And I am glad I have, too.'

'Yes, it is hard,' said the old housekeeper, with a glance at him; 'though it is not to be expected, sir, that you should quite understand it. But Miss Wych is the lovingest little creature that ever lived, I believe, and as true as the sky. Why, she could cheat Mr. Falkirk day in and day out if she chose!—but if ever those young men should get her to ride, against his orders, she would go and tell him of it, the first minute after she got home.'

Rollo did not ask whether they could do this, or had done it.
He went on quietly with his breakfast, only glancing up at
Mrs. Bywank to let her see that he was attending to her.

'So that's a great safeguard,' she began again, with a sigh. 'But I wish Mrs. Coles was back in Chicago! Miss Fisher was bad enough. And what the two will do between them—'

'What does Miss Fisher do?'

'It is plain to me,' said Mrs. Bywank, 'that she wants to pull my young lady down to her way of dress and behaviour; though Miss Wych don't guess it a bit. That she can never do, of course. But it is just like Miss Fisher to push where she can't pull. Do you understand me, sir?'

'Quite.'

'So that makes me anxious, sir. And there are hands enough to help.'

Leaning somewhat towards her young guest, breakfast rather forgotten on both sides, so they sat; when the door opened softly and Wych Hazel came in. But if the first minute inside the door could have been instantly exchanged for the last one outside, it is probable that the young lady of Chickaree would have disturbed no cabinet council over her that day. For with the first sight of the very people she expected to find, there rushed over her a horrible fear that Mr. Rollo would think she had come to see him!—and that Mrs. Bywank would think so—and (worst of all) that she thought so herself! But there was no retreating now. So passing swiftly to the old housekeeper's chair, and laying both hands on her shoulders to keep her in it, Hazel stooped down to kiss her; and then straightening herself up like a young arrow, she gave from behind Mrs. Bywank a demure good-morning to Mr. Rollo.

That gentleman had not been so much engrossed with the conversation as to have at all the air of being 'surprised,' or he was too good a man of the world to shew it. He had sprung up instantly as Wych Hazel came in, and now he came round to where she stood to shake hands, looking very bright, but as if her appearance was the simplest thing in the world.

'You have not had breakfast?' he said.

'I have had the opportunity. But you look altogether too comfortable here, you and Mrs. Bywank!—As for me, I have been breakfasting with two bears, and had nearly forgotten how civilization acts.'

'My dear!' said Mrs. Bywank.—'Not "breakfasting"—when you were coming here, Miss Wych?'

'Not much, Byo, to say the truth. I gave Mr. Falkirk his coffee—hot and hot.'

'He didn't give you waffles,' said Rollo, making room for her plate and cup upon the table. 'Mrs. Bywank, we must take care of her. I shall never grumble at sending answers to invitations after this.'

He was rendering little services and making himself variously useful, with the air of a person more at home than she was: drawing down a blind to keep the sun from her face, and opening another window to let in the air and the view.

'Take care of me!' said Wych Hazel, with a look at the table instead of at him, and then beginning to touch and mend things generally to suit her fancy. 'It is very plain what I have to do! There is the jar of marmalade quite pushed out of reach. And if you do not empty it, Mr. Rollo, Mrs. Bywank will think you have not fulfilled the sweet promise of your earlier years.'

'My dear!' remonstrated Mrs. Bywank, uneasily.

'I have satisfied her,' said Rollo, dryly. 'But there is a little left for you. There wouldn't have been if the two bears had known where it was.'

'Mr. Falkirk was fearfully growly this morning,' said Wych Hazel. 'And every time he growled Gotham grumbled. So I had a fusillade. Where is your fruit, Byo?'

'There was none brought in yesterday, Miss Wych, I'm sorry to say.'

'None at all in the house?'

'There's a basket in your room, my dear; but of course'—

'Not "of course" at all,' said the girl, jumping up to go for it. 'You know that is a sort of fruit I never eat.'

Which might have left it doubtful what sort she did eat,—the basket contained so many, in such splendid variety. Hazel sat down in her place and began to pile up the beauties in a majolica dish.

'Aren't you going to give me some?' said Rollo, looking on.

The answer tarried while Hazel's little fingers dived down after peaches and plums of extra size with which to crown her dish; but so doing, they suddenly brought up a white note, suspiciously sealed with red wax. The girl dropped it, as if it had been a wasp; and hastily setting the basket down on the floor, pushed the unfinished dish to a position before Mr. Rollo.

'There!' she said, 'will that do?'

'Do you mean that you give me all these?'

'Every bit.'

'Mrs. Bywank, might I make interest with you for a finger- glass?'

Which being supplied, the gentleman proceeded to a leisurely ablution of his fingers, and then looked at the dish of fruit before him with grave consideration.

'Which is the best?' said he.

'They all look about alike, to me,' said Wych Hazel, raising her eyebrows. 'I shall be happy to hear, when you have found out.'

Exercising a great deal of deliberation, Rollo finally chose out a bunch of Frontignac grapes and two Moorpark apricots, and set them before Wych Hazel.

'Will you accept these from me?' he said, coolly. 'They are my own property, and are offered to you. Taste and see if they are as good as they ought to be.'

She looked up, and down, laughing.

'That is the way you come round people! Will you take the responsibility? Suppose I am asked, some day, whether they— were—what they ought to be?'

'You can puzzle him just as well after knowing the fact, as before,' Rollo said, with perfect gravity.

'Well,' said Hazel, pulling a grape from the bunch. 'Perhaps my misleading powers may be equal to that. This one is quite good—and not at all sour,' she added, with a flash of her eyes—which, however, went to Mrs. Bywank. 'What do you want, Dingee?'

Dingee advanced and laid a card on the table.

'Say I am at breakfast. I cannot be expected to keep awake all night and all day too.'

'Permit me to inquire,' said Rollo, as he also attacked the grapes, but not looking at them, 'whether you did your share of growling this morning? I am sure no one had more cause.'

'No,' said the girl, laughing. 'I feel that I have a great reserve in store for somebody. Well, Dingee?'

A card with a written message this time. Hazel looked at it, drew her brows together, and, seizing a pencil, wrote a vigorous 'No,' across the lines.

'For somebody,' Rollo repeated. 'I am not sure that we got hold of the right delinquent. After all, peaches are the best thing after waffles and coffee. Try that.' And he placed a fine one alongside of Wych Hazel's plate.

'The thing is,' said Hazel, 'that unless you can growl with authority, nobody marks you.'

'General Merrick and Major Seaton, Missee Hazel, ma'am,' said her dark retainer, coming back.

'I thought I told you I was at breakfast?' said Hazel, in a tone of displeasure.

'Yes'm—but the Major he bound to know 'bout sumfin Missee Hazel left onsartin last night. 'Spect he'd like a keep-sake, too,' said Dingee, laying down another card. 'Mas' May put his away mighty safe.'

If ever his little mistress was near being furious, I think it was then. Eyes and cheeks were in a flame.

'I left nothing uncertain last night!' she said, turning upon him. 'Major Seaton knows that, if he will take the trouble to remember. And Dingee, if you bring me another message—of any sort—before I whistle for you, I will put you out of service for a month. Now go!'

'Is that the way you punish unlucky servitors?' said Rollo, looking much amused.

She had come back to her grapes, giving them the closest attention, feeling shy and nervous and disturbed to any point; but now fun got the upper hand. So first she bit her lips, and then—the laugh must come! Clear and ringing and mirthsome, as if there was never a growl in all the world.

'That is one way,' she said.

'Sounds peaceable,' said Rollo demurely, though smiling; 'but I don't know! I am afraid it might prove very severe. What is the appeal from one of your sentences?'

'There is none. I am a Mede and a Persian combined. Byo, why don't you give Mr. Rollo some cream with his peaches, and postpone me till another time?'

'She'll have to postpone me, too,' said Rollo. 'I must go. Shall I come for you at four o'clock? It will be too hot, I am afraid, before; and we have a good way to go.'