Wych Hazel

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

CHAPTER XXX.

THE WILL.

That night, and the next morning, Miss Kennedy had a fight with herself, trying hard to regain her footing, which was constantly swept away again by some new incoming tide of thoughts. It looks an easy matter enough, to climb out once more upon the ice through which you have broken; but when piece after piece comes off in your hands, sousing you deeper down than before, the thing begins to look serious. And in this case the young lady began to get impatient.

'Such unmitigated nonsense!' she declared to herself, with her cheeks on fire. But nevertheless said nonsense lifted its head very cleverly from under all the negations she could pile upon it; and indeed looked rather refreshed than otherwise by the operation. How Mr. Falkirk had dimly hinted at such things, long ago,—and how she had laughed at them! Was this what he had suggested her confiding to him?—Whereupon Miss Kennedy brought herself up short.

'I should like to know what I have to confide!' she said. 'I hope I am not quite a fool.' And with that she beat a retreat, and rushed down-stairs, and gave Mr. Falkirk an extravaganza of extra length and brilliancy for his breakfast; which, however, it may be noted, did not include any particulars of her ride. But when breakfast was over, Miss Kennedy for a moment descended to business.

'By the way, sir, I should tell you, Mr. Rollo proposes to leave one of his horses here, for me to use till my own come,— if that extraordinary day ever arrives. Are you agreeable—or otherwise—Mr. Falkirk?'

'I have never made any professions of being agreeable, Miss
Hazel; and it never was charges to me, that I know.'

'No, sir, certainly,—not when rides are in question. But may I use this horse, which has the misfortune to belong to somebody else?'

'I suppose he wouldn't give it to you if it was not fit for you to use,' said Mr. Falkirk, rather growlingly it must be confessed. 'Does he expect you to ride it with anybody but him, my dear?'

'As he made no mention of expecting me to ride with him, sir, the question presents itself somewhat differently to my mind,' said Miss Kennedy, with some heightening of colour. It had not been a 'pale' morning, altogether. 'Having a horse, Mr. Falkirk, may I ride with whom I like?'

'If the giver of the horse has no objections, Miss Hazel, I make none.'

'I am afraid, sir, your long seclusion has slightly unsettled your mind,' said Wych Hazel, looking at him with grave consideration, 'There is no "giver" of the horse in the first place; and in the second, you know perfectly well that with his first "objection" to my escorts, the horse would go back. And you used to be so exact, Mr. Falkirk!' she added, in a melancholy tone.

'Yes, my dear,' said her guardian, passing his hand over his face; 'no doubt my mind is in the condition you suggest. I am probably enchanted; which does not help me to guard you from falling into the same awkward condition. But, Miss Hazel, I have engaged a new groom for you. I desire that you will take him with you instead of Dingee. Dingee is no more than a monkey.'

It fell out, however, that Miss Kennedy in the next few days refused several 'escorts,' on her own responsibility; saying nothing about Jeannie Deans. Instead whereof, she went off in the early morning hours and had delightful long trots by herself, with only the new groom; who, she did not happen to remark, developed a remarkable familiarity with the new horse. Threading her way among the beautiful woods of Chickaree, wherever a bridle-path offered, and sure to be at home long before Mr. Falkirk's arrival to breakfast, so that he knew nothing whatever about the matter. Just why this course of action was in favour, perhaps the young lady herself could scarcely have told, had she tried; but she did not try. Whether other associations would break the harmony of some already well established; whether she feared people's questions about her horse; whether she liked the wild, irregular roaming through the forest

' 'ith no one nigh to hender'—

as Lowell has it. This last was undeniably true.

Meantime Mr. Rollo himself was away again—gone for a few days at first, and then by business kept on and on; and it suddenly flashed into Wych Hazel's mind one day, that now, before he got home, was the very time to go and have a good long talk with Primrose and her father. Nobody there to come in even at dinner time but Dr. Arthur; and him Wych Hazel liked so much and minded so little, that Dr. Arthur was in some danger of minding it a good deal. She would go early and ride Jeannie Deans, and get home before the crowd of loungers got out for their afternoon's play. At most it was but a little way from Dr. Maryland's to the edge of her own woods; not more than three miles perhaps; four to the gate.

Primrose was overjoyed to see her.

'What does make your visits so few and far between?' she cried as her hand came to lift off Wych Hazel's hat.

'Well,—what does make yours?' said Hazel, gaily. 'I am come for a little talk with you, and a lecture from Dr. Maryland, and any other nice thing I can find.'

'Then we shall keep you to dinner, and I'll have your horse put up. I do not see so much of you, Hazel, as I hoped I should when you came. You are such a gay lady.'

It was difficult to deny this. However, the talk ran on to other pleasanter topics, and was enjoyed by both parties for about half an hour. Then came a hindrance in the shape of a lady wearing the very face that had bowed to Wych Hazel so impressively from the carriage in Morton Hollow. The very same! the long pale features, the bandeaux of lustreless pale hair enclosing them, and two of those lustreless eyes which look as if they had not depth enough to be blue; eyes which give, and often appropriately, the feeling of shallowness in the character. But now and then a shallow lake of water has a pit of awful depth somewhere.

Prim's face did not welcome the interruption.

'This is my sister, Prudentia—Mrs. Coles,' she said. 'It is
Miss Kennedy, Prudentia.'

A most gracious, not to say ingratiating, bend and smile of Mrs. Coles answered this. She was a tall, thin figure, dressed in black. It threw out the pale face and flaxen bandeaux and light grey eyes into the more relief.

'I am delighted to see Miss Kennedy,' she said. 'It is quite a hoped-for pleasure. But I have seen her before—just seen her.'

Wych Hazel bowed—remembering with some amusement Mr. Rollo's caracole on the former occasion all about Mrs. Coles. Privately she wished she had not promised to stay to dinner.

'I was frightened to death at your riding'—the lady went on.
'Did your horse start at anything?'

'My horse starts very often when I am on him,' said Wych Hazel laughing.

'Does he! And do you think that is quite safe?'

'Why not?—if I start too. The chief danger in such cases is in being left behind.'

Wych Hazel was getting her witch mood on fast. Mrs. Coles looked a trifle puzzled.

'But my dear!' she said, 'the danger of that, I should think, would be if the other horse started.'

'O no, ma'am,' said Hazel gravely. 'My escorts never even so much as think of running away from me.'

At that point Primrose's gravity gave way, and she burst into a laugh. Mrs. Coles changed the subject.

'I have been very impatient to see one I have heard so much of,' she began again. 'In fact I have heard of you always. I should have called at Chickaree, but I couldn't get any one to take me. Arthur, he was busy—and Dr. Maryland never goes anywhere but to visit his people—Prim goes everywhere, but it is not where I want to go, for pleasure; and Dane I asked, and he wouldn't.'

'He did not say he wouldn't, Prudentia,' remarked her sister.

'He didn't say he would,' returned Mrs. Coles, with a peculiar laugh; 'and I knew what that meant. O, I should have got there some time. I will yet.'

Miss Kennedy bowed—she believed the fault must be hers. But she had not quite understood—or had confused things—in her press of engagements.

Mrs. Coles graciously assumed that there had been no failure in that quarter. And Dr. Maryland came in, and the dinner. A nice little square party they were, for Dr. Arthur was not at home; and yet somehow the conversation flowed in more barren channels than was ever the wont at that table in Wych Hazel's experience. A great deal of talk was about what people were doing; a little about what they were wearing; an enormous amount about what they were saying. Part of this seemed to be religious talk too, and yet what was the matter with it? Or was it with Wych Hazel that something was the matter? Primrose and Dr. Maryland then shared the trouble, for whatever they said was in attempted diversion or correction or emendation. Certainly among them all the talk did not languish.

There came a pause for a short space after dinner, when Dr. Maryland had gone back to his study. Then there was a demand for Primrose; one of her Sunday school children wanted her. Wych Hazel and Mrs. Coles were left alone. Mrs. Coles changed her seat for one nearer the young lady.

'I have been really anxious to see you, my dear Miss Kennedy,' she began, benignly.

'Some one of my escapades has reached her ears!' thought the young lady to herself; 'now if I can give her a good, harmless, mental shock,—just to bear it out!—I certainly will.—That sounds very kind,' she said aloud.

'Yes,—you know I heard so much about you when you were a child, and your connection with this house, and all;—and your whole romantic story; and now when I learned that you were grown up and here again, I really wanted to see you and see how you looked. I must, you know,' she added, with her peculiar smile.

There was so much in these words that was incomprehensible, that Wych Hazel for the moment was at a loss for any answer at all; and waited for what would come next, with eyes rather larger than usual. Mrs. Coles went on, scanning her carefully as she spoke, that same smile, half flattering, half assuming, wreathing her lips.

'I did want very much to see you—I was curious, and I am. Do tell me—how does it feel to have two guardians? I should think, you know, that one would be enough for comfort; and the other is sure to be a jealous guardian. Perhaps you don't mind it,' added Mrs. Coles, with a face so amiable, that if Wych Hazel had been a cat it would have certainly provoked a spring.

The first thing that struck the girl in this speech, was a certain sinister something, which by sheer instinct of self- defence threw her into position at once. The outward expression of it this time, seemed to be just one of the poor jokes about Mr. Rollo. 'Have you two guardians?' Mr. Nightingale had said.

'O sometimes I mind one, and sometimes I do not!' she answered, with a laugh.

'Ah, but which one do you mind?' said Mrs. Coles shrewdly. 'Or do they both pull together? To be sure, that is to be hoped, for your sake. It is a very peculiar position! And, I should think, trying. It would be to me.'

'People say there are a good many trying situations in life,' said Wych Hazel meekly, watching her antagonist. Why did the lady seem to her such?

'Yes!' said Mrs. Coles with half a sigh. 'And to be young and rich and gifted with beauty and loaded with admiration, isn't the worst; if it is trying to enjoy it all between two guardians. Do they keep you very close, my dear?'

('I think she is a little crazy,' thought the girl. 'No wonder—with such eyes.'—) 'A dozen could hardly do that, ma'am, thank you. Makes a more difficult fence to leap, of course—but when you are used to the exercise—'

Mrs. Coles laughed, a thin peculiar sort of laugh, not enjoyable to the hearer, though seeming to be enjoyed by the person from whom it proceeded. She had the air of being amused.

'Well,' she said, 'I should like to see you leap over fences of Dane's making. He used to do that for mine sometimes; it would serve him right. Does he know you do it?'

Unmistakeably, by degrees, Hazel felt her pulses quickening. There was more in this than mere banter; it was too connected and full of purpose for insanity. What was it? what dread was softly creeping towards her; and she could hear only a breaking twig or a rushing leaf? She must be very wary!

'I have been riding in other directions,' she answered carelessly. 'And not leaping much at all.'

The laugh just appeared again.

'Of course I do not know, but I fancy, his fences would not be easy to get over; Dane's, I mean. He was a very difficult boy to manage. Indeed I cannot say that I ever did manage him. He would have his own way, and my father always take sides with him. So everybody. So Primrose. O, Prim won't hear me say a word against him. And I am not saying a word against him; only I was very curious to know how he would fill his new office, and how well you would like it, and how it would all work. It is quite a romance, really.'

'And it is quite easy to make out a romance where none exists,' said Miss Kennedy, in a frigid tone.

'My dear! you wouldn't say that your case is not a romance?' said Mrs. Coles. 'I never knew one equal to it, out of books; and in them one always thinks the situation is made up. And to be sure, so is this; only Mr. Kennedy and Dane's father made it up between them. Don't you call your case a romance?'

'What part of my own case?' said the girl defiantly. If people had come to this, it was high time to stop them. 'Perhaps if you will be kind enough to speak more in detail, I may be able to put you right on several points.'

'My dear!' said Mrs. Coles, again with a surprised and protecting air, through which the amusement nevertheless shone. 'Don't you call the terms of the will romantic?'

'What will? and what terms?'—The defiance was in her eyes now.
'I cannot correct details if you keep to generals.'

'Your father's will, my dear; your father's and mother's I should say, for she added her signature and confirmation. And I'm sure that was one remarkable thing. It is so uncertain how boys will grow up.'

'And the romance?' said Wych Hazel. 'Will you tell me what version of it you have heard?'

'Why, my dear, you know Dane is your guardian, don't you?'

The girl's heart gave a bound—but that could wait; just now there was other business on hand.

'Well,' she said, 'is that the opening chapter? What comes next? I cannot review in part.'

'But didn't you know that, my dear? Did they keep it from you?'

Wych Hazel laughed,—Mrs. Coles was too much a stranger to her to know how,—and took out her watch. 'I must go in ten minutes,' she said,—'and I do want to hear this "romance," first. One's private affairs get such fresh little touches from strange hands! Just see what a heading for your next chapter, Mrs. Coles,—"N.B. The heroine did not know herself." Will it take you more than ten minutes?' she added, persuasively.

'If you didn't know, Primrose will be very angry with me,' said the lady, not seeming terrified, by the way,—'and Dane will be fit to take my head off. I had better go away before he comes.'

'Why, he is not your guardian too, is he?' said the girl, mockingly. 'That would prove him a man of more unbounded resources than even I had reason to suppose.'

'No,' said Prudentia, 'it was the other way. I was his once, practically. Not legally of course. That was my father. But do tell me—have I done something dreadful in telling you this?'

'I'll tell you things when you have told me,' said Wych Hazel. 'No cross-examination can go on from both sides at once. But I have only nine minutes now; so your part of the fun, Mrs. Coles, will be cut short, I foresee.'—Certainly Mrs. Coles might well be puzzled. But Wych Hazel had met with her match.

'My dear,' the lady returned, 'what do you want me to say? If you know about the will—that is what I was thinking of, I don't want to say anything I should not say. I didn't know but you knew.'

'And I didn't know but you didn't know,' said Miss Kennedy, feeling as nearly wild as anybody well could. 'If you do not, and I do, it is just as well, I daresay.' And she rose up and crossed the room to an open window from which she could speak to her groom, Lewis, in the distance, ordering up her horse. Mrs. Coles had a good view of her as she went and returned, steady, erect, and swift.

'My dear,' said the lady with that same little laugh, 'I know all about it, and did twelve years ago. You have nothing to tell me—except how the plan works. About that, I confess, I was curious.'

'O I shall not tell you that, Mrs. Coles, unless I hear exactly what you suppose the plan to be. Exactness is very important in such cases. And, by-the-by, you must be the lady of whom Mr. Rollo has spoken to me several times,' said Wych Hazel, with a sudden look.

'Has he? What did he say?'

'Several things. But my horse is coming. Do you think Mr. Rollo would really object to our discussing the "romance" together?'

Was it cunning or instinct in Wych Hazel? Mrs. Coles answered with a significant chuckle, but added—'My dear, you know he has money enough of his own.'

'Has he?' said Hazel, seeming to feel the lava crack under her feet, and expecting every moment a hot sulphur bath.

'So of course he is not to be supposed to want any more.
Didn't you know he was rich?'

'Never thought about it, if I did.'

'No, I suppose not. But if you never thought about it, nor about him,—I declare! it is hard that he should have the disposal of you and all you've got. Rich! his father was rich, and his money has been growing and growing all these years. I daresay he'll not be a bad master,—but yet, it's rather a hard case, if you never thought of him.'

Wych Hazel was silent a moment, as if thinking.

'What was the exact wording of the will, Mrs. Coles? Do you remember?'

'Wording? I don't know about wording, the lawyers curl their words round so, and plait them together; but the sense I know well enough; the terms of the will. It made a great impression upon me; and then seeing Dane for so many years, and knowing all about it, I couldn't forget it. This was the way of it. You know your father, and your mother, and Dane's father were immense friends?'

She paused, but Wych Hazel gave her no help.

'So they struck up this plan between them, when Mr. Kennedy knew he was ill and wouldn't ever be well again, and that his wife would not long outlive him. You were put under that old gentleman's guardianship,—I forget his name at this minute, but you know it well enough,—Mr. Falkirk! that was it. You were to be under Mr. Falkirk's guardianship, and Dane was to be the ward of my father; and so it was, you know. But when he arrived at the age of twenty-five, upon making certain declarations formally, before the proper persons, Dane, the will appointed, should be joint guardian with Mr. Falkirk, and look after you himself.'

Mrs. Coles paused and surveyed her auditor; indeed she had been doing that all along. And perhaps people of her sort are moved from first to last by a feeling akin to that which possessed the old Roman world, when men were put to painful deaths at public and private shows to gratify a critical curiosity which observed how they conquered pain or succumbed under it. Mrs. Coles paused.

'But I haven't told you,' she went on with a look as sharp as a needle, 'I haven't told you yet the substance of the declaration Dane was to make, to enable him to take his position. He was to declare, that it was his wish and purpose to make you his wife. Upon that understanding, with the approbation of Mr. Falkirk and my father, the thing was all to be fixed, as I told you. Then you would be between two guardians. And if you, up to the age of twenty-five, married any one else, against their joint consent, your lands and properties were to pass away from you to him, except a certain provision settled upon you for life. And,' said Mrs. Coles, with another chuckle, 'I wanted to know how it feels.'

Had an arrow or a bullet gone through her? or was it only the hot iron burning in those words? Hazel did not know. The one coherent thought in the girl's mind, was that a dying standard-bearer will sometimes bring away his colours. She brought off hers.

'I see but two mistakes,' she said, forcing herself to speak slowly, clearly. 'But I daresay either Mr. Rollo or Mr. Falkirk can point them out, any time. I must go. Good afternoon.'

She was gone—Mrs. Coles hardly knew by which way. The next minute Dr. Maryland's study door that looked on the garden swung back, and Wych Hazel stood by his side. Outside were Lewis and Jeannie Deans. Her eyes were in a glitter,—the Doctor could see nothing else.

'Sir,' she said, laying her hand on his book in her eagerness,—'excuse me,—Is this story that Mrs. Coles tells, true?'

In utter astonishment, gentle, wondering, benignant, the
Doctor looked up at her.

'Hazel? What is the matter? Sit down, my dear, if you want to speak to me.'

She moved a few steps off, as if afraid of being held. 'Is this true, Dr. Maryland, that she says about me——and——Mr. Rollo?' The words half choked her, but she got them out. 'The will?—don't you know?—you must know! Is it true?'

'What are you talking of, Hazel? Sit down, my dear. Prudentia?
What has she been talking to you about? I hope—'

'My father's will,—does she know?' Hazel repeated.

'Your father's will?—Prudentia?—Has she been talking to you of that! My dear, that was not necessary. It was not needful that you should hear anything about it; not now. I am sorry. Prudentia must have forgotten herself!' Dr. Maryland looked seriously disturbed.

'You do not tell me!' cried the girl. 'Dr. Maryland, is it true, what she says?'

'I do not know what she has said, my dear. But you need not be troubled about it. It was a kind will, and I think on the whole a wise one,—guarded on every side. What has Prudentia said to you, Hazel?' The Doctor spoke with grave authority now.

To which Miss Kennedy replied characteristically. She had caught up the words as he went on,—'not needful she should know,'—'she need not be troubled,'—then it was true! Everybody knew it except herself; everybody was doubtless also wondering how it felt! For a second she looked straight into her old friend's face, trying vainly to find a negative there, and then without a word she was off. And if Lewis had been called upon to bear witness, he might have said that his young mistress flew into the saddle, and then flew home.