A LESSON.
This visit and talk gave Hazel a great deal to ponder. The
work, and--the doer of it; and--did he ever think of her, she
questioned, in the doing? And did he expect to make _her_
'stand, as he had the bay'? and come, if he but 'snapped his
fingers'? On the whole, Miss Wych did not feel as if _she_ were
developing any hidden stores of docility at present!--not at
present; and one or two new questions, or old ones in a new
shape, began to fill her mind; inserting themselves between
the leaves of her Schiller, peeping cunningly out from behind
'reason' and 'instinct' and 'the wings of birds'; dancing and
glimmering and hiding in the firelight. Mr. Falkirk might have
noticed, about this time, that Miss Wych was never ready to
have the gas lit.
The gas was lit, however, and the tea-tray just brought in,
when one evening a few nights after the visit last recorded,
Rollo himself was announced. Notwithstanding all Mrs. Coles
had prognosticated, he seemed very much like himself both in
face and manner; he came in and talked and took his place at
the table, just as he had been used to do at Chickaree. Not
even more grave than he had often been there.
It was not the first time Wych Hazel had confessed to herself
that tea trays are a great institution; nor the first time she
had found shelter behind her occupation. Very demurely she
poured out the tea, and listened sedately to the talk between
the gentlemen; but it was with extra gravity that she at last
put her fingers in. She never could guess afterwards how she
had dared.
'Do you think he looks _much_ like a ruined man, Mr. Falkirk?'
she said, in one of the pauses of their talk.
A flash of lightning quickness and brightness came to her from
Rollo's eyes. Mr. Falkirk lifted his dumbly, not knowing how
to take the girl. He had not, so far in the talk, touched the
subject of Mrs. Coles' communications, though no doubt they
had not been out of his mind for one instant. But somehow, Mr.
Falkirk had lacked inclination to call his younger coadjutor
to account, and probably was hopeless of effecting any
supposable good by so doing. Now he stared wonderingly up at
Wych Hazel. She was looking straight at him, awaiting an
answer; but fully alive to the situation, and a little bit
frightened thereat, and with the fun and the confusion both
getting into her face in an irresistible way. Mr. Falkirk's
face went down again with a grunt, or a growl; it was rather
dubious in intent. Rollo's eyes did not waver from their
inquisition of Wych Hazel's face. It was getting to be hot
work!--Hazel touched her hand bell, and turned away to give
orders, and came back to her business; sending Mr. Falkirk a
cup of tea that was simply scalding. Her bravery was done for
that time.
'What have you been doing this winter?' Mr. Falkirk finally
concluded to ask.
'Investing in new stock,' Rollo answered carelessly.
'Don't pay, does it?'
'I think it will. Money is worth what you can get out of it,
you know.'
'Pray, if I may ask, what do you expect to get out of it in
this way?'
'Large returns'--said Rollo very calmly.
'I don't see it,' said Mr. Falkirk. 'I hope you do; but I
can't.'
'You have not the elements to make a perfect calculation.'
Rollo, it was plain, understood himself, and was in no
confusion on the subject. Mr. Falkirk, either in uncertainty
or in disgust, declined to pursue it. He finished his tea, and
then, perhaps, feeling that he had no right to keep watch over
his brother guardian, much to Wych Hazel's discomfiture, he
took up his book and marched away.
Rollo left the table and came round then to a seat by her
side.
'What have _you_ been doing this winter?' he asked, putting the
question with his eyes as well as with his words.
'Making old stock pay,'--said the girl, looking down at her
folded hands; she was not of the calm sisterhood who hide
themselves in crochet.
'Perhaps you will be so good as to enlarge upon that.'
Hazel sent back the first answer that came to her tongue, and
the next: it was no part of her plan to have herself in the
foreground.
'This is a fair average specimen of our tea-drinkings,' she
said. 'And the mornings are hardly more eventful. Just lately,
Mr. Falkirk has been a good deal disturbed about you. Or else
he was easy about you, and disturbed about your doings,--he has
such a confused way of putting things. But we heard you had
copied my "hurricane track," ' said Miss Wych, folding her
hands in a new position.
'And were you disturbed about my doings?'
'I? O no. I am never disturbed with what you do to anybody but
me.'
Rollo did not choose to pursue that subject. He plunged into
another.
'I should like to explain to you some of my doings; and I must
go a roundabout way to do it. Miss Hazel, do you read the
Bible much?'
'Much?' she said with a sudden look up. 'What do you call
"much?" '
He smiled at her. 'Are you in the habit of studying it?'
'As I study other things I do not know?--Not often. Sometimes,'
said Wych Hazel, thinking how often she had gone over that
same ninety-first Psalm.
'What is your notion of religion?--as to what it means?'
She glanced up at him again, almost wondering for a moment if
his wits were 'touched.' Then seeing his eyes were undoubtedly
sane and grave, set her own wits to work.
'It means,' she answered slowly after a pause, 'to me,
different things in different people. All sorts of
contradictions, I believe!--In mamma, as they tell of her, it
meant everything beautiful, and loving, and loveable, and
tender. And it puts Dr. Maryland away off--up in the sky, I
think. And it just blinds Prim, so that she cannot comprehend
common mortals. And it seems to open Gyda's eyes, so that she
_does_ understand--like mamma. And--I do not know what it means in
you, Mr. Rollo!'
'You never saw it in me.'
'No.'
'Let me give you a lesson to study,' said he. 'Something I
have been studying lately a good deal. I must take this minute
before we are interrupted. Have you got a Bible here?'
She sprang up and brought her own from the next room, with a
certain quick way as if she were excited; Rollo took it and
turned over the leaves, then placed it before her open.
'I have heard you read the Bible once. Read now those two
verses.'
"For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus
judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that
he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth
live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and
rose again."--2 Cor. v. 14, 15.
Wych Hazel read the words slowly, softly,--then look[ed] up at
him again.
'Is _that_ what it means in you?' she said.
'What do the words imply, for anybody?' he said, with his eyes
going down into hers as they did sometimes, like as if they
would get at the yet unspoken thoughts. But hers fell again to
the book.
'I suppose, they should mean--what they say,' she answered in
the same slow fashion. 'But what that is,--or at least would
be,--I do not very well know.'
'If One died for me,--if it is because of his love and death
for me that I live at all,--to whom do I properly belong?
myself, or him?'
'Well, and then?' she said, passing the question as answered.
'_Then_ a good many things,' he said, smiling again. 'Suppose
that he, to whom I belong, has work that he wants done,--
suppose there are people he wants taken care of and helped,--if
I love him and if I belong to him, what shall I like to do?'
'What you are doing, I suppose,' said Hazel, with a little
undefined twinge that came much nearer jealousy than she
guessed.
'That is very plain, and perfectly simple, isn't it?'
'It sounds so.'--And glancing furtively at the bright, clear
face, she added to herself Dr. Maryland's old words: 'Love
likes her bonds!'--That was plain too.
'Then another question. If I belong to this One whom I love,
does not all that I have belong to him too?'
'But it was not _I_ who said you were ruining yourself,' said
the girl in her quick way. 'I liked it.'
'Did you?' said he, with one of his flashes of eye. 'But I am
giving you a lesson to study. I am not justifying myself.
Answer my question. Does not all I have belong to that One,
who loves me and whom I love?'
She bowed her head in assent. Somehow the words hurt her.
'So that, whatever I do, I cannot be said to _give_ him
anything? It is all his already. I am asking you a business
question. I want you to answer just as it appears to you.'
'How can it appear but in one way?' said Hazel. 'That must be
true, of course.'
'Very well. That is clear. Now suppose further that my Lord
has left me special directions about what he wants done to
these people I spoke of--am I not to take the directions
exactly as they stand, without clipping?'
'Yes.'
He put his hand upon the book which lay before her, and turned
back the leaves to the third chapter of Luke; there indicated
a verse and bade her read again.
' "He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath
none." '
'What does that mean?' asked Rollo.
'What it says--if it means anything, I suppose.'
Again Rollo put his hand upon the leaves, turning further back
still till he reached the book of Isaiah. And then he gave
Wych Hazel these words to read:
'Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands
of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the
oppressed go free, and that ye break every joke? Is it not to
deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor
that are cast out to thine house? when thou seest the naked,
that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine
own flesh?'
'How are the commands to be met?' Rollo asked gravely when she
had done.
'Why, you have found out!' said Hazel. 'I knew you would go
off on a crusade after that October sky, Mr. Rollo.'
He seemed half to forget his subject, or to merge it, in a
deep, thoughtful gaze at her for a few moments, over which a
smile gradually broke.
'To come back to our lesson,' he said,--'are not these commands
to be taken _au pied de la lettre?_'
'They can hardly be the one exception among commands, I should
think,'--with a little arch of her eyebrows.
'Then I am bound, am I not, to undo every heavy burden that I
can reach? to loose every bond of wickedness, and to break
every yoke, and to remove oppression, in so far as it lies
with me to do it? Do you not think so?'
'Why, yes!' said Wych Hazel. 'Does anybody _like_ oppression?'
'Does anybody practise it?'
'I do not know, Mr. Rollo. O yes, of course, in some parts of
the world. But I mean here. Yes,--those people used to look as
if something kept them down,--and I used to think Mr. Morton
might help it, I remember.'
'You are not to suppose that oppression is liked for its own
sake. That is rarely the case, even in this world. It is for
the sake of what it will bring, like other wrong things. But a
question more. Can I do _all_ I can, without giving and using
all I have for it?'
'That is self-evident.'
'Then it only remains, how to use what I have to the best
advantage.'
'Well, even Mr. Falkirk admits you are a good business man,'
said Hazel, laughing a little.
'How are you for a business woman?'
'Nobody has ever found out. Of course I consider myself
capable of anything. But then business never does come into my
hands, you know.'
'This business does.'
'Does it? the business of caring for other people?--Last summer
Dr. Maryland read a terrible text about the "tears of the
oppressed, and they had no comforter." It haunted me for a
while. But I could do nothing. No,--one must have more right of
way than I have--yet.'
'I do not mean the business simply of caring for other people.
I mean the whole course of action, beginning from those first
words you read.'
'You know,' she said quietly, 'I have never tried.'
'Will you study the lesson I have set you?'
'The one you have been learning?'
'Yes. The one contained in these verses you have read. Shall I
do harm if I mark this book?'
'No.'--The word came quick, under breath.
He turned to the different places where she had been reading,
and carefully marked the passages; then sought out and
likewise marked several others. 'Will you study the lesson
out?' he asked as he was busy with the last marking.
'I will try--I think,' she answered slowly. 'As well as I know
how.'
'Do not fancy,' he said, smiling as he shut the book, 'that
the care of the needy, in any shape, is religion; nor think
that He who loves us will take _anything_ as a substitute for
our whole-hearted love to him. If we give him that, he will
let us know in what way we may shew it.'
She made no answer except by another swift look. This was
Chaldee to her! He let the silence last a little while.
'Now I have asked you so many questions,' he said, 'I should
like it if you would ask me a few.'
'What about?'
'All subjects are open to you!'
'How did you contrive to make the bay "stand"?'
The flash of Rollo's eye came first.
'How do you know I did?' he said laughing. 'But that is no
answer. Let me see. I believe, first I made him know that he
must mind me; and secondly, I persuaded him into loving me.
All that remained, was to let him understand that I wanted him
to be immovable when I was not on his back.'
'O, but!--' said Hazel hastily,--the sentence ending in crimson
cheeks, and the shyest veil of reserve dropped over her face.
'I might question here,' said Rollo in an amused tone, and
eyeing her inquisitively; 'but I have done it so often,--I
leave the ground to you. What next?'
'What next' seemed to have flown away.
'Does Collingwood engross all the thoughts that go back to
Chickaree?'
A sidelong glance of the brown eyes was all that Mr. Rollo got
by that venture.
How is Trüdchen?' she asked gravely.
'Flourishing. Asks after you whenever she gets a chance.'
'Mrs. Boërresen of course is well, as she has had you to look
after?'
'Gyda is happy. It is a comfort to her to have to make
fladbrod for two.'
'It must be a comfort to you to eat it!--How is poor Mr.
Morton? I felt for him when I heard you had turned his world
upside down.'
'What did you feel for him?' said Rollo quite innocently.
'You have asked all your questions. I think it would be proper
now,' said Wych Hazel, folding her hands and controlling the
curling lips, 'that you should go on and tell me all there is
to be told, and save me the trouble of asking any more.'
'I do not wish to save you the trouble.'
'It is good practice occasionally to do what you do not wish.
Instructive. And full of suggestion.'
'Suggestion of what?'
'Try, and you will know. I doubt if you ever did try,' said
Wych Hazel.
'I tried it last night and yesterday morning, when I was
turned away from your door with the announcement that you were
out.'
'But you did not leave your name!' said Hazel, looking up.
'I found it "suggestive" too,' Rollo went on. 'I do not know
whether you would like me to tell you all the things which it
suggested.'
'How is everybody else at home?' said Hazel, changing her
ground. 'I heard Miss May had been sick.'
The answer tarried, for Mr. Falkirk came in, and perhaps Rollo
forgot it, or knew that Wych Hazel had; for it was never
given. He entered into talk with Mr. Falkirk; and did his part
well through the rest of the evening. Then, Mr. Falkirk
expressing the surmise, it was hardly put in the form of a
hope, that they would see him to breakfast or dinner, Rollo
averred that he was going immediately home. He had done his
work in town, and could not tarry. No remark from the lady of
the house met that. Indeed she had been sitting in the
silentest of moods, letting the gentlemen talk; having enough
to think of and observe. For absence does change, even an
intimate friend, and both lifts and drops a veil. Old
characteristics stand out with new clearness; old graces of
mind or manner strike one afresh; but the old familiarity
which once in a sort took possession of all this, is now
withdrawn a little,--we stand off and look. And so, secretly,
modestly, shyly, Wych Hazel studied her young guardian that
night. But when he had risen to go, the faintest little touch
from one of her finger tips drew him a step aside.
'I said I would study that,' she began. 'But it seems to me
you explained it all as you went along. What is there left to
study?'
The grave penetrating eyes she met and had to meet once, gave
all the needed force to his answer.--'_Your part_, Miss Hazel.'
He stood looking at her a minute; and then he went away.
If when Rollo had entered he room where she was, that evening,
the instant feeling had been that he must come often: perhaps
the after feeling was that he could not stand much of this
doubtful and neutral intercourse. For he did as he had
promised; left her, practically, to Mr. Falkirk, and came not
to town again during all the rest of that winter.