Wych Hazel

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

CHAPTER XXXIX.

A COTTON MILL.

As she came to the side door, she saw Rollo just dismounting from Jeannie Deans, and immediately preparing to remove his saddle and substitute the side-saddle; which he did with the care used on a former occasion. But Jeannie had raised her head and given a whinny of undoubted pleasure.

'Let her go, Mr. Rollo,' whispered Lewis.

And so released, the little brown steed set off at once, walking straight to the verandah steps, pausing there and looking up to watch Hazel, renewing her greeting in lower tones, as if this were private and confidential. Hazel ran down the steps, and made her fingers busy with bridle and mane, giving furtive caresses. Only when she was mounted, and Rollo had turned, his ear caught the sound of one or two little soft whispers that were meant for Jeannie's ears alone.

Perhaps the gentleman wanted to give Wych Hazel's thoughts a convenient diversion; perhaps he wished to get upon some safe common ground of interest and intercourse; perhaps he purposed to wear off any awkwardness that might embarrass their mutual good understanding; for he prefaced the ride with a series of instructions in horsemanship. Mr. Falkirk had never let his ward practise leaping; Rollo knew that; but now, and with Mr. Falkirk looking on, he ordered up the two grooms with a bar, and gave Wych Hazel a lively time for half an hour. A good solid riding lesson, too; and probably for that space of time at least attained all his ends. But when he himself was mounted, and they had set off upon a quiet descent of the Chickaree hill, out of sight of Mr. Falkirk, all Wych Hazel's shyness came back again; hiding itself behind reserve. Rollo was in rather a gay mood.

'It is good practice,' he said. 'Did you ever go through a cotton mill?'

'Never.'

'How would you like to go through one to-day?'

'Why—I do not know. Very well, I daresay.'

So with this slight and doubtful encouragement, Rollo again took the way to Morton Hollow. It was early October now; the maples and hickories showing red and yellow; the air a wonderful compound of spicy sweetness and strength; the heaven over their heads mottled with filmy stretches of cloud, which seemed to float in the high ether quite at rest. A day for all sorts of things; good for exertion, and equally inviting one to be still and think.

'How happens it you have let Jeannie stand still so long?'
Rollo asked presently.

'I have not wanted to ride her,—that is all.'

'Would you like her better if she were your own?' he said quite gently, though with a keen eye directed at Wych Hazel's face.

'No. Not now.' The 'now' slipped out by mistake, and might mean either of two things. Rollo did not feel sure what it meant.

'Did you ever notice,' he said after a few minutes again, 'how different the clouds of this season are from those of other times of the year? Look at those high bands of vapour lying along towards the south; they seem absolutely poised and still. Clouds in spring and summer are drifting, or flying, or dispersing, or gathering: earnest and purposeful; with work to do, and hurrying to do it. Look at those yonder; they are at rest, as if all the work of the year were done up. I think they say it is.'

The fair grave face was lifted, shewing uncertainty through the light veil; and she looked up intently at the sky, almost wondering to herself if there had been clouds in the spring and early summer. She hardly seemed to remember them.

'Is that what they say to you?' she said dreamily. 'They look to me as if they were just waiting,—waiting to see where the wind will rise.'

'But the wind does not rise in October. They will lie there, on the blessed blue, half the day. It looks to me like the rest after work.'

She glanced at him.

'I do not know much about work,' she said. 'What I suppose you would call work. It has not come into my hands.'

'It has not come into mine,' said Rollo. 'But can there be rest without work going before it?'

'Such stillness?' she said, looking up at the white flecks again. 'But according to that, we do not either of us know rest.'

'Well,' said he smiling, 'I do not. Do you?'

'I used to think I did. What do you mean by rest, Mr. Rollo?'

'Look at those lines of cloud. They tell. The repose of satisfied exertion; the happy looking back upon work done, after the call for work is over.'

She looked up, and kept looking up; but she did not speak. Somehow the new combinations of these last weeks had made her sober; she did not get used to them. The little wayward scraps of song had been silent, and the quick speeches did not come.

'But then,' Rollo went on again presently, 'then comes up another question. What is work? I mean, what is work for such people as you and I?'

'I suppose,' said Hazel, 'whatever we find to do.'

'I have not found anything. Have you? Those clouds somehow seem to speak reproach to me. May be that is their business.'

'I have not been looking,' said Hazel. 'You know I have been shut up until this summer. But I should think you might have found plenty,—going among people as you do.'

'What sort?'

'Different sorts, I suppose. At least if you are as good at making work for yourself in some cases as you are in others,' she said with a queer little recollective gleam in her face. 'Did it never occur to you that you might set the world straight—and persuade its orbit into being regular?'

'No,' said Rollo carelessly, 'I never undertake more than I can manage. Here is a good place for a run.'

They had come into the long level lane which led to Morton Hollow; and giving their horses the rein they swept through the October air in a flight which scorned the ground. When the banks of the lane began to grow higher and to close in upon the narrowing roadway, which also became crooked and irregular, they drew bridle again and returned to the earth.

'Don't you feel set straight now?' said Rollo.

'Thank you—no.'

'I am afraid you will give me some work to do, yet,' said he audaciously, and putting his hand out upon Wych Hazel's. 'Do not carry quite so loose a rein. Jeannie is sure, I believe, and you are fearless; but you should always let her know you are there.'

'Mr. Rollo—' said the girl hastily. Then she stopped.

'What?' said Rollo innocently, riding close alongside and looking her hard in the face. 'I am here.'

'Nothing.'

Then he changed his tone and said gently, 'What was it, Miss
Hazel?'

'Something better unsaid.'

He was silent a minute, and went on gravely—

'You wanted to know why I interfered the other night as I did; and I promised, I believe, to explain it to you when I had an opportunity. I will, if you bid me; but I may do the people injustice, and I would rather you took the view of an unprejudiced person—Mr. Falkirk, for instance. But if you wish it, I will tell you myself.'

'No,' she said; 'I do not wish it.'

Rollo was quite as willing to let the matter drop; and in a few minutes more they were at the mill he had proposed to visit. There they dismounted, the horses were sent on to the bend in the valley, beyond the mills; and presenting a pass, Rollo and Wych Hazel were admitted into the building, where strangers rarely came. One of the men in authority was known to Mr. Rollo; he presented himself now, and with much civility ushered them through the works.

They made a slow progress of it; full of interest, because full of intelligent appreciation. Perhaps, in the abstract, one would not expect to find a gay young man of the world versed in the intricacies of a cotton mill; but however it were, Rollo had studied the subject, and was now bent on making Wych hazel understand all the beautiful details of the machinery and the curiosities of the manufacture. This was a new view of him to his companion. He took endless pains to make her familiar with the philosophy of the subject, as well as its history. Patient and gentle and evidently not in the least thinking of himself, his grey eyes were ever searching in Wych Hazel's face to see whether she comprehended and how she enjoyed what he was giving her. As to the relations between them, his manner all the while, as well as during the ride, was very much what it had been before the disclosure made by Mrs. Coles had sent Wych Hazel off on a tangent of alienation from him. Nothing could exceed the watch kept over her, or the care taken of her; and neither could make less demonstration. There was also the same quiet assumption of her, which had been in his manner for so long; that also was never officiously displayed, though never wanting when there was occasion. And now, in the mill, all these went along with that courtier-like deference of style, which paid her all the honour that manner could; yet it was the deference of one very near and not of one far off.

Wych Hazel for her part shewed abundant power of interest and of understanding, in their progress through the mill; quick to catch explanations, quick to see the beauty of some fine bit of machinery; but very quiet. Her eyes hardly ever rose to the level of his; her questions were a little more free to the conductor than to him. Even her words and smiles to the mill people seemed to wait for times when his back was turned, as if she were shy of in any wise displaying herself before him.

Their progress through the mill was delayed further by Rollo's interest in the operatives. A rather sad interest this had need to be. The men, and the women, employed as hands in the works, were lank and pale and haggard, or dark and coarse. Their faces were reserved and gloomy; eyes would not light up, even when spoken to; and Rollo tried the expedient pretty often. Yet the children were the worst. Little things, and others older, but all worn-looking, sadly pale, very hopeless, going back and forth at their work like so many parts of the inexorable machinery. Here Rollo now and then got a smile, that gleamed out as a rare thing in that atmosphere. On the whole, the outer air seemed strange and sweet to the two when they came out into it, and not more sweet than strange. Where they had been, surely the beauty, and the freedom, and the promise, of the pure oxygen and the blue heaven, were all shut out and denied and forgotten.

'There is work for somebody to do,' said Rollo thoughtfully, when the mill door was shut behind them.

The girl looked at him gravely, then away.

'Do all mill people look so?' she said. 'Or is it just Morton
Hollow?'

'They do not all look so. At least I am told this is a very uncommon case for this country. Yet no doubt there are others, and it is not—"just Morton Hollow." Suppose, for the sake of argument, that all mill people look so; what deduction would you draw?'

'Well, that I should like to have the mills,' said Wych Hazel.

They walked slowly on through the Hollow. The place was still and empty; all the hands being in the mills; the buzz of machinery within, as they passed one, was almost the only sound abroad. The cottages were forlorn looking places; set anywhere, without reference to the consideration whether space for a garden ground was to be had. No such thing as a real garden could be seen. No flowers bloomed anywhere; no token of life's comfort or pleasure hung about the poor dwellings. Poverty and dirt and barrenness; those three facts struck the visitor's eye and heart. A certain degree of neatness and order indeed was enforced about the road and the outside of the houses; nothing to give the feeling of the sweet reality within. The only person they saw to speak to was a woman sitting at an open door crying. It would not have occurred to most people that she was one 'to speak to'; however, Rollo stepped a little out of the road to open communication with her. His companion followed, but the words were German.

'What is the matter?' she asked as they turned to go on their way.

'Do you remember the girl that came to Gyda's that day you were there? this is her mother. Trüdchen, she says, has been sick for two weeks; very ill; she has just begun to sit up; and her father has driven her to mill work again this morning. The mother says she knows the girl will die.'

'Driven her to work!' said Hazel. 'What for?'

'Money. For her wages.'

'What nonsense!' said Hazel, knitting her brows. 'Why, I can pay that! Tell her so, please, will you? And tell her to send Trüdchen down to Chickaree for Mrs. Bywank and me to cure her up. She will never get well here.'

Rollo gave a swift bright look at his companion, and then made three leaps up the bank to the cottage door. He came down again smiling, but there was a suspicious veiling of his sharp eyes.

'She will cry no more to-day,' he remarked to Wych Hazel. 'And now you have done some work.'

'Have I?'—with a half laugh. 'But instead of wanting to rest, I feel like doing some more. So you have made a mistake somewhere, Mr. Rollo.'

There came as she spoke, a buzz of other voices, issuing from another mill just before them; voices trained in the higher notes, and knowing little of the minor key. And forth from the opening door came a gay knot of people,—feathers and flowers and colours, with a black coat here and there; one of which made a short way to Miss Kennedy's side.

'Where have you been?' said Captain Lancaster, after a courteous recognition of Mr. Rollo. 'You have been driving us all to despair?'

'People that are driven to despair never go,' said Wych Hazel; 'so you are all safe.'

'And you are all yourself. That is plain. Why were you not at
Fox Hill? But you are coming to Valley Garden to-morrow?'

'I think not. At least, I am sure not.'

'Then to the ball at Crocus?'

'No.'

'My dear Hazel!' and 'My dear Miss Kennedy!' now sounded from so many female voices in different keys of surprise and triumph, that for a minute or two the hum was indistinguishable. Questions came on the heels of one another incongruously. Then as the gentlemen fell together in a knot to discuss their horses, the tongues of the women had a little more liberty than was good for them.

'You have been riding, Hazel; where are your horses?'

'Where have you been?'

'O, you've been going over a mill! A cotton mill? Horrid! What is the fun of a cotton mill? what did you go there for?'

'What sort of a mill have you been over?' said Hazel.

'O, the silk mill. Such lovely colours, and cunning little silk-winders,—it's so funny! But where have you been all this age, Hazel? you have been nowhere.'

'I know what has happened,' said Josephine Powder, looking half vexed and half curious,—'you needn't tell me anything. When a lady sees almost nobody and goes riding with the rest, we know what that means. It's transparent.'

'I wouldn't conclude upon it, Hazel,' said another lady. 'A man that had got a habit of command by being one's guardian, you know, wouldn't leave it off easy. Would he, Mrs. Powder?'

'Are we to congratulate you, my dear?' asked the ex-Governor's lady, with a civil smile, and an eye to the answer.

'Really, ma'am, I see no present occasion?' said Hazel, with more truth than coolness.

'She sees no occasion!' cried Josephine. 'Well, I shouldn't either in her place.' (Which was a clear statement that grapes were sour.) 'Poor child! Are you chained up for good, Hazel?'

'Hush, Josephine?' said her mother, who was a well-bred woman; such women can have such daughters now-a-days. And she went on to invite Hazel to join a party that were going in the afternoon to visit a famous look-out height, called Beacon Hill. She begged Hazel to come for luncheon, and the excursion afterwards.

'Do say yes, please!' said Captain Lancaster, turning from the other group. 'You have said nothing but no for the last month.'

'Well, if being a negative means that one is not also a positive—' Hazel began.

'And then, oh Miss Kennedy,' broke in Molly Seaton, 'there's this new Englishman!—'

'A new Englishman!—'

'Yes,' said Molly, unconscious why the rest laughed, 'and he's seen you at church. And he has vowed he will not go home till he has seen you in the German.'

'Has he?' said Hazel. 'I hope he likes America.'

They gathered round her at that, in a breeze of laughter and entreaty, till her shy gravity gave way, and Mr. Rollo's ears were saluted by such a musical laugh as he had not heard for many a day.

'He'll be here presently,' said Molly. 'He's up in the mill with Kitty Fisher. So you can ask him yourself, Miss Kennedy.'

Rollo heard, and purposely held himself a little back, and continued a conversation he did not attend to; he would not be more of a spoil-sport then he could help.

'You'll come, won't you, Hazel?' said Josephine. 'I will be very good if you will come.'

Hazel balanced probabilities for one swift second.

'That is too large a promise, Phinny—I would not make it. But I will come, thank you, Mrs. Powder. Only not to luncheon. I will drive over this afternoon, and meet you at the hill.'

'Why, here is our dear Duchess!' cried Kitty Fisher, rushing up. 'And where is the—ahem!—Mr. Rollo, I am delighted to see you. Miss Kennedy, allow me to present Sir Henry Crafton.'

Wych Hazel bowed, and turning towards Mr. Rollo, remarked that if she was to come back, she must go. Rollo was also invited to Beacon Hill, but excused himself; and he and Wych Hazel left the others, to go forward to find their horses.

On the ride home he made himself particularly pleasant; talking about matters which he contrived to present in very entertaining fashion; ignoring the people and the insinuations they had left behind them in the Hollow, and drawing Wych Hazel, so far as he could, into a free meeting of him on neutral ground. They had another run through the lane; a good trot over the highway; and when they had entered the gate of Chickaree and were slowly mounting the hill, he spoke in another tone.

'Miss Hazel, don't you think you have done enough for to-day?'

'Made a good beginning.'

'Twenty-four miles on horseback—and a cotton mill! That is enough for one day, isn't it, for you?'

'Twenty-four, is it?' she said carelessly. 'Call it four, and my feeling will not contradict you.'

'Very well. I want your feeling to remain in the same healthy condition.'

'It always does.'

'Beacon Hill will not run away. Leave that for another time. It is a good day's work for you, that alone. Suppose we go there to-morrow?' said Rollo coolly, looking at his companion.

'Well—if I like it well enough to-day.'

Dane was silent, probably feeling that his duty as Miss Kennedy's guardian was in the way of doing him very frequent disservice. However he was not a man to be swayed by that consideration. He came close alongside of Jeannie Deans and looked hard in Wych Hazel's face as he spoke,

'Do you think Mr. Falkirk would be willing to have you go to- day?'

'Why, of course!'

'I think he would not. And I think he ought not.'

'Mr. Falkirk never interferes with my strength or my fatigue!—'

'I shall not ask him. I take the matter on my own responsibility.'

She had thrown her veil back for a minute, and leaving the bridle on Jeannie's neck, both little hands were busy with some wind-disturbed rings of hair. She put them down now and looked round at him,—a look of great beauty; the girlish questioning eyes too busy with him, for the moment, to be afraid. Could he mean that? was he really trying to head her off in every direction?

'Are you in earnest?' she said slowly.

His eyes went very deep into hers when they got the chance, carrying their own message too. He answered with a half smile,

'Thorough earnest.'

She drew back instantly, eyes and all; letting fall her veil and taking up her bridle. Except so, and by the sudden colour, giving no reply. She was learning her lesson fast, she thought, a little bitterly. Nevertheless, if people knew the exquisite grace there can be in submission, whether to authority or to circumstances it may be they would practise it oftener.

Not another word said Rollo. What was the use? She would understand him some day;—or she would not! in any case, words would not make it clear. Only when he took her down from her horse he asked, and that was with a smile too, and a good inquisition of the grey eyes, 'if he should come to take her to Beacon Hill to-morrow?'

'No,' she said quietly. 'I think not.'

'When will you have another riding lesson?'

'I do not know,' she said, with a tone that left the matter very doubtful.

'Well,' said he, 'you may go to Beacon Hill without me. But you must not try leaping. Remember that.'

He did not go in. He remounted and rode away.