Wych Hazel

by Susan Warner; Anna Bartlett Warner

CHAPTER XXXVI.

THE RUNAWAY.

The fancy ball at Moscheloo was a brilliant affair. More brilliant perhaps than in the crush and mixed confusion of city society could have been achieved. It is a great thing to have room for display. There were people enough, not too many; and almost all of them knew their business. So there was good dressing and capital acting. The evening would have been a success, even without the charades on which Mme. Lasalle laid so much stress.

Dominoes were worn for the greater amusement; and of course curiosity was busy; but more than curiosity. In the incongruous fashion common to such entertainments, a handsome Turkish janissary drew up to a figure draped in dark serge and with her whole person enveloped in a shapeless mantle of the same, which was drawn over her head and face.

'I have been puzzling myself for the last quarter of an hour,' said he, 'to find out—not who—but what you are.'

'Been successful?' said the witch.

'I confess, no. Of course you will not tell me who you are; but I beg, who do you pretend to be?'

'O, pretend!' said the witch. 'I am "a woman that hath a familiar spirit!" '

'Where did you pick up your attendant?'

'Came at my call. I suppose you have heard of Endor?'

'Have I? En—dor? Where have I heard that name? It is no place about here. 'Pon my honour, I forget.'

'In the East?' suggested the witch.

'Stupid!—I know; you are the very person I want to see. But first I wish you would resolve an old puzzle of mine—Did you bring up Samuel, honestly?—or was it all smoke?'

'Smoke proves fire.'

'Samuel would not have been in the fire.'

'He would if it was necessary,' said the witch. 'Whom do you want brought up, Mr. Nightingale?'

'Ha!' said the janissary. 'How do you know that? But perhaps you are "familiar" with everybody. Bring up Miss Kennedy?'

'Very well,' said the witch, beginning to walk slowly round him. 'But as it is not certain that Saul saw Samuel, I suppose it will not matter whether you see her?'

'It matters the whole of it! I want to see her of course. There is nobody else, in fact, whom I want to see; nor anybody else worth seeing after her. The rarest, brightest, most distracting vision that has ever been seen west of your place.'

'If there is nobody worth seeing after, you had better see everybody else first,' said the witch, pausing in her round.

'You have a familiar spirit. Tell me what she thinks about me; will you?'

The witch threw up a handful of sweet pungent dust into the air, and made another slow round about the janissary.

'Neither black nor white,'—she said oracularly, 'neither yellow nor blue; neither pea-green nor delicate mouse grey.'

'I?' said Stuart. 'Or what?'

'Either. Both.'

The janissary laughed somewhat uneasily. Just then a knight, extremely well got up in the habiliments of the 13th century, stepped near and accosted the witch in a confidential tone.

'Everybody here, I suppose, is known to you. Pray who is that very handsome, very décolletée, lady from the court of Charles the Second? Upon my word! she does it well.'

'That is Miss Fisher.'

'Well, if women knew!'—said the knight slowly. It was evident he thought himself speaking to safe ears, probably not handsome enough to be displayed. 'If they knew!' he repeated. 'Does she not do it well?'

'Does she?' said the witch. 'I was not in England just then.'

'Don't you wish you had been! It's a very fair show,'— continued the knight as he looked. 'We ought to be much obliged to the lady. Really, she leaves—nothing—to be desired! If you please, merely as a subject of curiosity, from what part of the world and time does yonder figure come? the broad- brimmed hat?'

The figure was a very fine one, by the way. His dress was a quaintly-cut suit of dark blue cloth, the edges bound with crimson, and fastened with silver buttons. White fine thread stockings were tied at the knee with crimson riband, and silver buckles were in his shoes.

'You must know,' said the witch, 'that there are several parts of the world from which I have been banished.'

'In an aesthetic point of view, I should say the edict was justified,' returned the knight, surveying the bale of brown serge before him. He passed on, and the man in the blue cloth presently took his place.

'They tell me you are a witch,' said he, speaking in rather a low tone; 'and as you see, I am a countryman. Will you have the goodness to explain to me—I suppose you understand it—what all the these people are?'

'They are people who for the present find their happiness in being other people,' said the witch, with a grave voice, in which however a laugh was somewhat imperfectly muffled. 'Like yourself, sir.'

'Like me? Quite the contrary. I was never more myself, I assure you. For that very reason I find myself not at home. Excuse my curiosity. Why, if you please, do they seek their happiness out of themselves, as it were, in this way?'

'Well,' said the witch confidentially, 'to tell you the truth, I don't know. You see I am in your predicament, and was never more myself.'

'But I thought you had a familiar spirit? I have read so much as that.'

'At your service'—said the witch.

'Then be so good as to enlighten me. I see a moving kaleidoscope view of figures—it's very pretty—but why are they all here?'

'Some because they were invited,' said the witch critically. 'And doubtless some because others were. And a good many for fun—and a few for mischief.'

'Is it the custom in this country to make mischief one of the pleasures of society?'

'Yes!' said the witch with some emphasis. 'And to tell you the truth again, that is just one of the points in which society might be improved.'

'But how do fun and mischief go along together?'

'Well, that depends,' said the witch. 'The wrong sort of mischief spoils the right sort of fun.'

'And does that often happen, among such well-dressed people as these?'

'O, where if her Grace?'—cried a gay voice in the distance.
'I've sworn to find her.'

The witch was silent a moment, then answered slowly, 'It happens—quite often.'

'Can people find nothing pleasanter to do with their time,' said the countryman, 'than to spend it in mischief? or in fun which the mischief spoils? These things you tell me sound very strange in my ears.'

'The right sort of mischief is fun,—and the right sort of fun is -not- mischief,' she said impatiently. 'And what people find in the wrong sorts, I don't know!'

'By the way,' said the countryman, 'how come you to be here? How did you escape, when Saul killed all the rest of the witches?'

'It is queer, isn't it?' she said. 'Wouldn't you have supposed
I should be the first one to fall?'

'And in this country, are you using your experience to make or to mend mischief?'

'Make all I can! Are there any Sauls on hand, do you think?'

'Pray, what sort of man would you characterize by that name?'

'Well,' said she of Endor with again the hidden laugh in her voice, 'some men have a hidden weakness for witches which conflicts with their duty,—and some men don't!'

'I hope I am not a Saul, then,' said the countryman laughing, though softly; 'but in any case you are safe to take my arm for a walk round the rooms. I should like to see all that is to be seen; and perhaps you could help me to understand.'

It was not a more incongruous pair than were to be seen in many parts of the assembly. The beauty of Charles the Second's court was flirting with Rob Roy; a lady in the wonderful ruff of Elizabeth's time talked with a Roman toga; a Franciscan monk with bare feet gesticulated in front of a Swiss maiden; as the Witch of Endor sauntered through the rooms on the arm of nobody knew exactly what countryman.

'Your prejudices must be very often shocked here,' said the countryman with a smothered tone of laughter again. 'Or, I beg pardon!—has a witch any prejudices, seeing she can have no gravity?'

'What does prejudice mean in your country?'

'Much the same, I am afraid, that it does elsewhere. What are we coming to?'

Passing slowly through the rooms, they had arrived at the great saloon, at one end of which large folding doors opened into another and smaller apartment. This smaller room was hung with green baize; candelabra shed gentle light upon it from within the doors, so placed as not to be seen from the principal room; and over the folding doors was hung a hick red curtain; rolled up now.

'What is all this?'

'O, if you wait a while,' said the witch, 'you will see further transformations—that is all.'

'And what is this for?' said the countryman, pointing to the rolled-up rend curtain.

'To hide the transformed, till they are ready to be seen.'

'But it does not hide anything,' said the countryman obtusely.
'How do they get it down?'

He went examining about the door-posts, with undoubted curiosity, till he found the mechanism attached to the curtain and touched the spring. Down fell the red folds in an instant. The man drew it up again, and let it fall again, and again drew it up.

'Very good,' he said approvingly. 'Very good. We have no such clever curtains in my country. That will do very well.'

As he spoke, a bell sounded through the house. Immediately the witch escaped by a side door. Two or three others followed her; and then the rest of the company began to pour in and fill the saloon before the red curtain.

'Well, I never was so stupid in all my life!' said the court beauty. 'I might have known no other girl would come as a roll of serge!'

'And I might have known, that if I failed to recognize Miss Kennedy's hand, it could be only because it was out of sight,' said Mr. Kingsland, who by special favour wore only his own face and dress.

'You'll get a mitten from her hand—and a slap in it, if you don't look out,' said the lady.

'Better a mitten from that hand than a glove from any other,' replied Mr. Kingsland with resignation.

'Easier for you to get,' the beauty retorted. 'But did you hear of the fun we had the other night?—the best joke! We all put Seaton up to it, and he carried it off well. Dick wouldn't. Before the dancing began, he went up to Miss Kennedy and asked her with his gravest face whether she felt guardian's orders to be binding? And she coloured all up, like a child as she is, and inquired who wanted to know? So Seaton bowed down to the ground almost, and said he—

' "I had the honour of asking Mr. Rollo this afternoon, concerning the drive we spoke of; and he gave me an emphatic no. And now I am come to you to reverse the decision."

'Well, you should have seen her face!—and "What did he say,
Major Seaton?" she asked. "As near as I can remember," said
Seaton with another bow, "he said, Sir I cannot possibly allow
Miss Kennedy to take any such drive as you propose!" '

'Well?—' said Mr. Kingsland,—'I have heavy wagers out on Miss
Kennedy's dignity.'

'I don't know what you call dignity,' said the beauty,—'I didn't know at first but she would knock him down for his information,—she did, with her eyes. And then my lady Duchess drew herself up as grand as could be, and answered just as if she didn't care a snap,—"Did Mr. Rollo say that, Major Seaton? Then I certainly shall not go." '

Mr. Kingsland clapped his hands softly. 'Safe yet,' he said. 'But where did Kitty pick up that name for her?' he added, turning to his next neighbour. 'You are in the way of such titles.'

'Kitty won't tell,' the lady answered, an elaborate Queen Elizabeth. 'Not at present. She found out nobody understood, but Miss Kennedy does, so now she holds it over Miss Kennedy's head that she will tell. That is the way she got her before the glass the other night.'

'The tenderness these gentle creatures have for each other!' said Mr. Kingsland.

Meantime a bustling crowd had been pouring in and filling the saloon, and there began to be a cry for silence. The curtain was down; by whom dropped no one knew; but now it was raised again by the proper attendants, and the sight of the cool green little stage brought people to their good behaviour. The silence of expectancy spread through the assembly.

Behind the scenes there was a trifle of delay.

'My dear child,' Mme. Lasalle whispered to the ci-devant witch of Endor, 'Mr. Lasalle is in no condition to act with you as he promised. Ill; really ill, you know. We must take some one else. Standing about with bare feet don't agree with his constitution. It won't matter.'

'It matters very much!' said Wych Hazel. 'O, well—just leave that charade out. There are enough more.'

'Indeed there are not!' exclaimed her hostess. 'We cannot spare this. Indeed I doubt if any other will be worth presenting after it. My dear, it makes no difference! and you are ready, and Stuart is ready, and the people are waiting. You must not fail me at the pinch, Hazel. Go on and do your prettiest, for my sake.'

'Not with Mr. Nightingale. I will have little Jemmy Seaton, then. He is tall enough.'

'He couldn't do it. Nonsense, my dear! you don't mean that there is anything serious in it? It is only a play, and a short one too; and Stuart will be, privately, a great improvement on Mr. Lasalle, who wouldn't have done it with spirit enough; as why should he? Come, go on! Stuart is not worse to play with than another, is he? Come! there's Mr. Brandevin waiting for you. He's capital!'

There was no time to debate the matter; no time to make further changes; everybody was waiting; Miss Kennedy had to yield.

The first act was on this fashion. An old man in the blouse of a Normandy peasant sat smoking his pipe. Enter to him his daughter, a lovely peasant girl; Wych Hazel to wit. The father spoke in French; the daughter mingled French and English in her talk very prettily. There was some dumb show of serving him; and then the old man got up to go out, charging his daughter in the severest manner to admit no company in his absence. Scarcely is he gone, when enter on the other side a smart young man in the same peasant dress. Words here were not audible. In dumb show the young man made protestations of devotion, begged for his mistress's hand and kissed it with great fervour; and appeared to be carrying on a lively suit to the damsel. Now nothing could have been prettier than the picture and the pantomime. Stuart kept his face away from the audience; Wych Hazel was revealed, and in the coy, blushing maidenly dignity and confusion which suited the character and occasion, was a tableau worth looking at. Well looked at, and in deep silence of the company; till suddenly the growling old French father is heard coming back again. The peasant starts to his feet, the girl sits down in terror.

'What shall I do?' he cries, and she echoes,—'What shall he do? What shall he do?'

Then came confused answers from the spectators:—'Bolt, old fellow!'—'Escape!'—'Fly!'—'Run!'—and the last word being taken up and re-echoed, 'Run! run!'—he did run; ran out and then ran in and across the stage again; finally out of sight; and drop the curtain. The burst of applause was tremendous.

'You'll have to go on, you know, if that keeps up,' said
Stuart behind the scenes; 'and I don't wonder. Here, Mr.
Brandevin, go in and stop them!'

The next scene was also very well done. The old French gentleman was alone, and had it all to perform by himself. He began with calling his daughter, in various discordant keys, and with such a variety of impatient and exasperated intonation, that the whole room was full of laughter. His daughter not appearing nor answering, he next instituted a make-believe search for her, feigning to go into the kitchen, the buttery, her bedroom. Not finding her, and making a great deal of amusement for the spectators by the way, he at last comes back and asks in a deploring tone, 'Where is she?'

Cries of 'Off!'—'Gone!'—'Sloped!'—'Away!' were such a medley that nobody professed to be able yet to make out the word. The curtain fell again.

'You are very stupid,' said Mme. Lasalle. 'It is as plain as possible.'

'It will be, when we see the rest,' said somebody. 'No, I don't think it is, either.'

For as he spoke, the curtain rose upon an old clergyman, busy with his books at a table with a lamp. He had a wig, and looked very venerable indeed. Presently to him comes, after a knock, his servant woman.

'Please, sir, here's a young couple wantin' to see ye. It's the old story, I expect.'

'Let them come, Sarah—let them come in!' says the old clergyman; 'the old story is the newest of all! Let them come,—but first help me on with my gown. So!—now you may open the door.'

Enter the old peasant's daughter and her lover. The latter confers with the old clergyman, who wheezes and puffs and is quite fussy; finally bids them stand before him in the proper position. The proper position, of course, brings the two people to face the audience, while the old clergyman's back was a little turned to them, and no loss.

Now the dislike with which Miss Kennedy had received the change of companions in this charade by no means lessened as the play went on. The first scene had annoyed her, the minute she had time to think it over during the solo of the second; and now finding herself face to face with ideas as well as people,—ideas that were not among her familiars,—was very disagreeable; all the more that Mr. Nightingale had contrived to infuse rather more spirit into his part of the performance than was absolutely needful. Wych Hazel looked unmistakeably disturbed, and her eyes never quitted the ground. The audience, quite failing to catch her mood, only applauded.

'Capital!' said General Merrick. 'Positively capital! If it was a real case, and she in momentary expectation of her father, she might look just so.'

'Or if she had accidentally escaped with the wrong person,' said Captain Lancaster, who would have rather preferred to be in Mr. Nightingale's position himself.

'No,' said one of the ladies, 'she is not afraid,—what is she?'

'She is Wych Hazel,' said Mr. Kingsland. 'Do you see what a breath came then? Not complimentary to Nightingale—but he can find somebody else to turn his head.'

Meanwhile, they all standing so, the old clergyman began his office.

'Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife?' he demanded audibly enough. And Stuart's reply came clear—

'I will.'

'Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband?'

He had turned towards the pretty peasant girl who stood there with her eyes cast down, and expectation was a-tiptoe. Before the eyes were lifted, and before an answer could be returned, another actor came upon the scene. The countryman who wore the dark blue cloth bound with crimson, stepped into the group from his place at the side of the curtain. He wore his broad- brimmed hat, but removed his domino as he came upon the stage. Yet he stood so that the audience were not in position to see his face. They heard his voice.

'There is a mistake here,' he said with and excellent French accent on his English. 'This lady is a—what you call—she has no power to dispose of herself.'

The clergyman looked somewhat doubtful and astonished; he had not been prepared for this turn of the play; but it was all in keeping, the interruption came naturally, quietly; he had to meet it accordingly. Stuart's face darkened; he knew better; nevertheless for him too there was but one thing possible, to go on and play the play. His face was all in keeping, too. The anger of the one and the doubt of the other actor were all proper to the action and only helped the effect.

'Diable! what do you want here?' the young peasant exclaimed.

'What is all this, sir? what is this?' said the old minister.
'What do you here, sir?'

'I come for the lady.'

'The lady don't want to see you, you fool!' exclaimed Stuart.
'You needn't think it.'

'What authority have you here, sir, to interfere with my office?' demanded the clergyman.

'Monsieur'—said the countryman hesitating, 'Monsieur knows. This young girl is young—I represent the guardians of her. She is minor; she has no property, nor no power to marry herself; she had nothing at all. She has run away. Monsieur sees. Come, you runaway!' he went on, advancing lightly to where the young girl stood. 'Come with me! She has run away; there is no marriage to-day, sir,' he added with a touch of his hat to the old clergyman. And then, taking Wych Hazel's hand and putting it on his arm he walked her out of the room. It was not as it was few evenings ago; her hand was taken in earnest now and held, and she was obliged to go as she was led. In the little apartment which served as a green-room there were one or two attendants. Rollo walked past them with a steady, swift step which never stayed nor allowed his companion to stop, until he reached the ladies' dressing-room. It was entirely empty now. The very servants had gathered where they could see the play. Here Rollo released his charge.

The first thing she did was to seat herself on the nearest chair and look at him. Her first words were peculiar.

'If I could give you the least idea, Mr. Rollo, how exceedingly disagreeable it is to have my hand taken in that way, it is possible—I am not sure—but it is possible, you would not do it. Your hands are so strong!' she said, looking down at the little soft things in her lap. 'And my strength is not practised.'

He looked grave, but spoke very gently, bending towards her as if also considering the little hands.

'Did I act so well?' said he. 'You see that was because there was so much earnest in it.'

'What made you do it?—is everything forbidden unless I ask leave?'

'Do you want to know why I did it?'

'I did not like the play, either,' she said,—'and I did not expect—part of it. But I had promised, and straight through was the quickest way out. It would have done—everybody—too much honour to make a fuss.'

'I did nobody any honour, and I made no fuss,' said Rollo, in his old quaint fashion. 'And my way was the very quickest way out for you.'

She jumped up, with a queer little inarticulate answer, that covered all his statements.

'There will be a fuss, if I do not find a quick way back among those people,' she said, passing round him to the door. Then paused with her hand on the knob, considering something.

'Why did you do it, Mr. Rollo?'

'I will try to explain, as soon as I get an opportunity. One word,' he added, detaining her,—'Laugh it off as far as you can, down stairs, as part of the play.'

'Easy to do,' said the girl with some emphasis. 'Unfortunately I do not feel at all like laughing. If you had done me a little honour, sir, it would have been needless.'

She went first to the small dressing-room down stairs, catching up her serge and muffling herself in it once more, so that not a thread of her peasant's dress appeared; then went silently in among the crowd, a very sober witch indeed. It was a little while before she was molested. By and by, while another charade was engaging people's interest, Mme. Lasalle worked round to the muffled figure.

'My dear,' she whispered, 'who was that?'

'One of your dominoes, Madame. Acted with a good deal of spirit, didn't you think so?'

'Magnifique! But that was none of my dominoes. My dear, you will never know how lovely your representation was. But, that interruption was no part of our play, as we had planned it. How came it? Who was it? Somebody who made play to suit himself? How came it, Hazel?'

'Just what I have been trying to find out,' said the girl. 'I shall not rest till I do.' But she moved off then, and kept moving, and was soon too well taken possession of for many questions to reach her. All of her audience but two or three, took the interruption for part of the play, and were loud in their praises. Hearing and not hearing, muffled in thoughts yet more than in serge, as an actor or spectator the Witch of Endor saw the charades through, and played with her supper, and finally went out to her carriage and the dark world of night. For there was no moon this time, and stars are uncertain things.

As Stuart Nightingale came back from putting her into the carriage, he encountered his aunt.

'Well!' he said in an impatient voice, smothered as it was, 'that job's all smoke.'

'Who was it?'

'That infernal meddler, of course.'

'Rollo?'

'Who else would have dared?'

'How did he get in?'

'That you ought to know better than I. It was no fault of mine.'

'Rollo!' said Mme. Lasalle. 'And I thought I had cleverly kept him out. The tickets were not transferable. Did she let him in?'

'Not she. No doing of hers, nor liking, I promise you. I think he has settled his own business, by the way. But we can't try this on a second time, Aunt Victorine. Confound him!'