Wych Hazel

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

CHAPTER XXXIII.

HITS AT CROQUET.

The second day after the four-in-hand club affair, the following note was brought to Miss Hazel:

'Will you ride with me this afternoon?
'M. O. R.'

And perhaps five words have seldom taken longer to write than these which he received by return messenger:

'Not to-day. Please excuse me.
'Wych Hazel.'

It happened that invitations were out for a croquet party at Chickaree; and the day of the party was appointed the third succeeding these events. Thither of course al the best of the neighbourhood were invited.

The house at Chickaree stood high on a hill; nevertheless immediately about the house there was lawn-room enough and smooth greensward for the purposes of the play. The very fine old trees which bordered and overshadowed it lent beauty and dignity to the little green; and the long, low, grey house, with some of its windows open to the verandah, and the verandah itself extending the whole length of the building, with cane garden-chairs and Indian settees hospitably planted, made a cheery, comfortable background. September was yet young, and the weather abundantly warm; the sort of weather when everybody wants to be out of doors. No house in the country could show a prettier croquet-green than Chickaree that afternoon.

Mr. Falkirk had mounted the hill in advance of other comers, and stood surveying the prospect generally from the verandah.

'Who is to be here, Miss Hazel? I am like a bear newly come out of his winter-quarters—only that my seclusion has been in the other season of the year.'

'Pray let the resemblance go no further, sir! Who is to be here?' said Miss Kennedy, drawing on her dainty gloves,—'all the available people, I suppose. Unless they change their minds.'

'Have the goodness to enlighten me. Available people—available for what?'

'Croquet—and flirting.'

'If you please— I understand, I believe, the first term; it means, to stand on the green and roll balls about among each other's feet; but what is comprehended in "flirting"?'

'Standing in the air and rolling balls there,' said Miss
Kennedy.

'Ah! Don't people get hit occasionally?'

'Very likely. But they do not tell.'

'Ah! My dear, has anybody hit you?'

'Thank you, sir,—I generally keep on the ground.'

Mr. Falkirk suspended his questions for the space of five minutes.

'I have not heard of your taking any rides lately,' he began again.

'No, sir.'

'How comes that?'

'It comes by my refusing to go.'

'Why, my dear?' said her guardian, looking her innocently in the face.

'Aren't you glad, sir?—How do you do, Mr. Kingsland? Will you be kind enough to explain to Mr. Falkirk the last code of flirtation? while I go and give an order?'

'It is the only thing in which Miss Kennedy is not unsurpassed,—to make my definition short,' said the gentleman, taking a chair. 'I think she will never learn.'

Primrose Maryland was the immediate next arrival; and she sat down on the other side of Mr. Falkirk, looking as innocent as her name. Mr. Falkirk had always a particular favour for Primrose.

'Did you come alone, my dear?' he incautiously asked; for Mr. Kingsland was at his other elbow. And Prim knew no better than to answer according to fact.

'Where is Rollo?'

'I don't know, sir. I suppose he is at home.'

'Doubtless thinking one guardian may suffice—as it is a mere croquet party,' said Mr. Kingsland smoothly, but with a covert glance of his eye at Mr. Falkirk. Both Primrose and Mr. Falkirk glanced at him in return, but his words got no other recognition, for people began to come upon the scene. And the scene speedily became gay; everybody arriving by the side entrance and passing through the broad hall to the front of the house. Wych Hazel, returned from her errand, came now slowly through the hall herself with the last arrival.

'I feared you were ill with fatigue,' said a pleasant man's voice. 'Three times I have called to inquire, and three times gone away in despair.'

'I was very tired.'

'But what was the matter?' said the gentleman, pausing in the doorway. 'Some call of sudden illness? a demand upon your sympathies?'

'Nothing of the kind.'

'How then?' said Captain Lancaster, with an appearance of great interest. 'One does not lose a pleasure—and such a pleasure—without at least begging to know why. If it is permitted. We began to think that the witches must have got hold of you in that dark room.'

'One did,' said the girl, so gravely that Captain Lancaster was posed. She knew perfectly well what ears were listening; but there was something in her nature which always disdained to creep out of a difficulty; so she stood still, and answered as he had spoken, aloud.

'O, Miss Kennedy,' cried Molly Seaton, 'that's a fib. Not a real witch?'

'Pretty genuine, I think,' said Hazel, with her half laugh.

Now there is no way in the world to puzzle people like telling them the truth. The gentleman and the lady were puzzled. Stuart Nightingale and half a dozen more came up at the instant; and the question of the game to be played, for the time scattered all other questions.

For a while now the little green at Chickaree was a pretty sight. Dotted with a moving crowd of figures, in gay-coloured dresses, moving in graceful lines or standing in pretty attitudes; the play, the shifting of places, the cries and the laughter, all made a flashing, changing picture, full of life and full of picturesque prettiness. The interests of the game were at first absorbing. When a long match had been played, however, and there was a pause for refreshments, there was also a chance for rolling balls in the more airy manner Wych Hazel had indicated.

'What was the matter the other night?' Stuart Nightingale demanded softly, as he brought the little lady of the house an ice.

'I could not stay.'

'Summoned home by no disaster?'—

'It was a sort of disaster to me to be obliged to go,' said Wych Hazel, 'but I found neither earthquake nor volcano at home.'

'Who came for you, Hazel?' said Phinny Powder, pushing into the group which was forming. 'I said it was downright wicked to let you go off so. How did we know but that something dreadful had got hold of you? I thought they ought all of them to go in a body and knock the doors down and find out. But after your message they wouldn't. Who did come for you, Hazel?'

'Who did?' said Hazel. 'Do you think it could have been the same parties who once sent away my carriage when I wanted it?'

'No,' said Phinny; 'I know it wasn't. But who did come for you, Hazel? Nobody knew where you were. And what made you go, if there was no earthquake at home, as you said?'

'Were you made to go, really?' asked Mme. Lasalle, slyly. 'Has
Josephine hit the mark with a stray arrow?'

'O, of course I was made to go,—or I shouldn't have gone,' said Wych Hazel lightly. 'My own carriage came for me, Josephine, and I came home in it. Do you feel any better?'

'No, I don't!' said that young lady boldly, while others who were silent used their eyes. 'You didn't order it, and I just want to know who did. O, Hazel, I want to ask you—' But she lowered her voice and glanced round her suspiciously.

'Is it safe? Where is that old Mr.——? do you see him anywhere? He has eyes, and I suppose he has ears. Hush! I guess it's safe. Hazel, my dear, have you got two guardians, you poor creature?'

'Have you only just found that out?' said Hazel, drawing a little back from the whisper and answering aloud. 'Prim, what will you have? Mr. May, please bring another ice for Miss Maryland.'

'Well, I've guessed it all summer,' said Kitty Fisher, putting her word in now. 'I always knew that when Miss Kennedy turned round, the Duke turned too, to see what she was looking at.'

If truth be no slander, it is sometimes full as hard to bear. Wych Hazel eat her own ice for the next two minutes and wondered what it was.

'Hazel, my dear, you had need to be a saint!' Mme. Lasalle whispered. 'It is—absolutely—outrageous; something not to be borne!'

'But the fun of it is,' broke in Kitty again, 'that we all took it for granted it was mere lover-like devotion! And now, behold, c'est tout au contraire!'

Since the day of the ride it had been war to the knife with
Kitty Fisher.

'Kitty! Kitty!' said Mr. Kingsland in soft deprecation.

'My dear,' Mme. Lasalle went on mockingly, 'perhaps he would not approve of your eating so much ice. Hadn't you better take care?'

'Must we ask him about everything now, before we can have you?' cried Josephine, in great indignation, quite unfeigned, though possibly springing from a double root. 'O, was it he came for you to Greenbush?'

But with that Hazel roused herself.

'You had better ask him anything you want answered,' she said.
'I think he has quite a genius that way.'

'What way? O, you know, friends, perhaps, she likes it. What way, Hazel?'

'Does he speak soft when he gives his orders?' said Kitty
Fisher. 'Or does he use his ordinary tone?'

'And oh, Miss Kennedy,' said little Molly Seaton, 'isn't it awfully nice to have such a handsome man tell you what to do?'

Now Hazel had been at her wits' end, feeling as if there was a trap for her, whatever she said or did not say. Pain and nervousness and almost fright had kept her still. But Molly's question brought things to such a climax, that she burst into an uncontrollable little laugh, and so answered everybody at once in the best manner possible. The sound of her laugh brought back the gentlemen too,—roaming off after their own ices,—and that would make a diversion.

But it came up again and again. It was to some too tempting a subject of fun; for others it had a deeper interest; it could not be suffered to lie still. Wych Hazel's ears could hardly get out of the sound of raillery, in all sorts of forms; from the soft insinuation of mischief in a mosquito's song, to the downright attacks of Kitty Fisher's teeth and Phinny Powder's claws. The air was full of it at last, to Wych Hazel's fancy; even the gentlemen, when they dared not speak openly, seemed in manner or tone to be commiserating or laughing at her.

'The diplomacy of truth!' said Mr. Kingsland to Mr. Falkirk, as Hazel passed near them with Mme. Lasalle. 'I must believe in it as a fixed fact,—where it exists! I should judge, by rough estimate, that Miss Kennedy had been asked about fifty- five trying questions this day; and in not one case, to my knowledge, has her answer even clipped the truth. She is a ninth wonder,—and from that on to the twenty-ninth! With all her innocence and ignorance—which would not comprehend nine- tenths of what might be said to her, I do not know the man who would dare say one word which she should not hear!'—With which somewhat unusual expression of his feelings Mr. Kingsland took himself away, leaving Prim and Mr. Falkirk alone on the verandah.

But it was a rather weary-faced young hostess that wrapped
Prim up, after that, and the lips that kissed her were hot.

Mr. Falkirk went down to his cottage and came back to breakfast the next morning, without having broached to his ward several subjects which stirred his thoughts. Finding himself in the fresh light of the new day, and in the security of the early morning, seated opposite Miss Hazel at the breakfast table, with the croquet confusion a thing of the past, he opened his mind.

'You had no wine yesterday, my dear, I observed.'

'No, sir. As I intended.'

'That is not according to custom—of other people.'

'It is my custom—henceforth,' said Wych Hazel.

'Are the reasons too abstruse for my comprehension?'

The girl looked up at him, her eyes kindling.

'Mr. Falkirk,' she said, 'if ever again a man gets a glass of wine from my hand, or in my house, I shall deserve to live that July night all over!'

Mr. Falkirk did not at all attempt to combat this conclusion. He ate his toast with an extremely thoughtful face for some minute or two.'

'Suppose, by and by, there should be two words to that bargain?'

'Then there will be several more, sir,—that is all,' she said steadily, though her face glowed.

'You mean that you will fight for your position?'

'Inch by inch. Fight for it, and keep it.'

Mr. Falkirk's lips gave way a little, though with what expression it was impossible to determine.

'To remark that your position will be remarked upon as peculiar is, I am aware, to make a fruitless expenditure of words in your hearing, Miss Hazel. But it will not make much difference what you do, my dear. They will find the article, in its varieties, at every other house that is open to them.' Mr. Falkirk was thinking probably of young men.

'Well, sir—I, at least, will have no part in making any man unfit to speak to a woman.'

Mr. Falkirk ruminated again, and then broke out:

'Why did not Rollo come with Miss Maryland yesterday?'

'I presume, because he did not want to come,—but perhaps you had better ask him,' said Miss Hazel.

'Why should I ask him?' returned her guardian, looking up at her. 'Has Mr. Rollo offended you, Miss Hazel?'

'I merely thought you wanted to know, sir. No,' she answered, to his last question. 'He was invited—if that is what you mean.'

'I fancied,' said Mr. Falkirk, looking puzzled, 'that in the general buzz of tongues yesterday—which is fit to confuse anything with more brains than a mosquito—I heard various buzzings which seemed to have reference to him. Perhaps I was wrong. I did not mean to listen, but if a fly gets into your ear it is difficult not to know it. Was I right, or was I wrong?'

'Right, I fancy, sir. Mr. Rollo's name is very often upon people's tongues.'

'What did they mean? What was it about?'

She hesitated a little.

'I daresay your opinion was correct, Mr. Falkirk, as to the meaning as well as the buzz. It is hardly worth bringing up again.'

If Mr. Falkirk had any roughness in his manner or in his composition, he had also and certainly a very gentle side of it for his ward. He looked at her again and dropped the subject. But he had got another. He waited a little before bringing it up.

'Another thing I heard confused my ideas, Miss Hazel. You must not wonder at me; you know, a bear just out of winter quarters might well be astonished at coming into a garden full of crickets, and a little unable to distinguish one song from another. But it seemed to me that I heard something said—or alluded to—about your being unwillingly obliged to go home from somewhere. Can you give me any explanation?'

The pause was longer this time, the colour unsteady. Then she put both hands up to her forehead, pushing back the dark rings of hair with an impatient touch, and began, speaking low and rapidly, but straight to the point.

'I was invited to a garden party at Mrs. Powder's, and after I got there, found out that the invitation included a four-in- hand drive to Greenbush. And I went. And Mr. Rollo heard of my going, and followed me there with Primrose and Reo and the carriage, and made me come back.'—She had gone on, throwing in details, as if to prevent their being called for. Now the scarlet flush with which the last words were spoken faded away, and she was silent and rather pale.

I suppose Mr. Falkirk had done his breakfast. If not, he lost the last part of it. For as Wych Hazel stopped speaking he rose from the table and began to take turns up and down the room; scowling, it must be confessed, as if he would have rather liked an excuse to 'pitch into' his co-guardian. He said nothing for some minutes, and it was not necessary; his eyebrows were eloquent.

'A four-in-hand party!' he said at last. 'Who got it up?'

'Some of the four-in-hand club.'

'Who are they, Miss Hazel?'

'Mr. May, Captain Lancaster, Dr. Singleton,'—Hazel named over sundry names that were unknown to Mr. Falkirk.

'He's a bold man!' said Mr. Falkirk, probably not referring to any member of the club aforesaid. 'I wonder at his impudence. But, my dear!—a four-in-hand party, and Greenbush at night,— that was no sort of place for you to be! Do you know how these parties come home, who go out so bravely?'

'I knew pretty well, sir, how my party would,' said his ward.

'No you didn't. How should you know anything about it? The young mouse in the fable thought the cat was a very fine gentleman. Con—found him!' said Mr. Falkirk, stopping short, 'how did he know? Was he at the garden party at the Governor's?'

'No, sir.'

'Then how did he know where you were?'

'Mr. Rollo seems to be a man who gives close attention to his duties,'—rather dryly.

'I was the proper person to be applied to,' muttered Mr.
Falkirk. 'I should like to be informed how this came about?'

But Miss Hazel not giving—as indeed she was in no position to give—any light on this point, Mr. Falkirk walked a little more, and then brought up with:

'Don't go again, my dear.'

'I am not likely to go often anywhere, at such a risk!' said Wych Hazel, the tide beginning to overflow again.—'Poor little me!' she broke out, in a tone that was sorrowful as well as impatient,—'always in charge of two policemen! Why, you could almost keep a convict in order with that!' Then in a moment she sprang up, and coming to her guardian's side laid her hand on his arm. 'I beg your pardon, Mr. Falkirk! I did not mean it in any way to hurt you.'

'No, my dear,' said her guardian, gently, laying his hand on hers. 'I am not hurt. I understand, as I ought, having seen you twitch yourself out of leading-strings ever since you were old enough to go. It is rather hard upon you. But how came it to your knowledge, Hazel?' And Mr. Falkirk looked grave.

'It came—through somebody telling Mrs. Coles what was none of her business,' said the girl, with more energy than exactness of wording.

'Who did that?'

'I am sure I don't know, sir. She talks as if she had known it always.'

'Like enough. And she told you! The whole story, my dear?' added Mr. Falkirk, gently and softly.

'I hope there is nothing more!' said Hazel, again donning her scarlet in hot taste.

'Enough and too much!' muttered Mr. Falkirk. 'Poor child! So the old guardian is better than the young one, my dear?'

'It used to be supposed,' said the girl, dancing off out of the room, 'that twice one is two. But I am inclined to think that twice one is six!'—Which was all the satisfaction Mr. Falkirk got.