have had you disturbed. I ought not to have expected more of your
company than the few minutes you could give me on leave-taking."
So saying, Paul Charteris seated himself beside her upon the broad,
shallow step, and possessed himself of one of the passive hands.
"What have you been doing?" he asked gently.
Hazel regarded the captive hand, or rather its prison, but her thoughts
were not of it.
"Mr. Charteris," she said, timidly lifting her eyes to his, as with an
effort she decided to speak her mind, "do you think--would it be very
odd, if I sat behind in the phaeton, with--with the trunk, you know? Do
you suppose Digby would mind, or think me very rude?"
"He would have no right to object," Paul answered warmly, pleased that
she had appealed to him. "If he annoys you, he cannot expect better
treatment."
"But that is my trouble," she explained, disengaging her hand to take up
and fondle a fluffy ball of a kitten. "He only annoys me by being too
nice. So it seems unkind to feel annoyed. If only one could sit with
one's back to the horse for fear of draughts and smuts," she went on,
"as one would, with one's back to an engine! I want to sit so that he
cannot look into my face every time that he says anything."
Paul hastily removed his eyes from her countenance. "Just so," he said,
"very naturally." But, though indignant on the girl's behalf, he felt
he could not justly blame Digby Travers for this.
"And everything he says has two or more meanings," Hazel continued
impatiently. "Now, when _you_ say, 'Is it not a glorious day?' you
mean: is it not a glorious day?" She paused.
"And what does Digby mean?" Paul asked quietly, the while feeling he
should like to demand the answer from Travers himself.
"I don't quite know," Hazel answered, troubled. "He seems to think that
he and I have reasons for thinking it much more glorious than other
people. But I must go up to mother," she added, rising, "I cannot keep
him waiting long, and--and I feel better, now that I have told you."
Left to himself, Paul paced up and down in deep thought. Did not
Hazel's confidence in him authorise him to speak to young Travers? Yet
no; Digby would not admit the authority--would ask a much greater right
than that of a friend--nay, of a mere acquaintance, as he would probably
pronounce Paul, who in the jealousy of his heart sought to keep others
from the girl's side, to take away from him, Digby Travers, and from all
men other than himself, Paul Charteris, the natural right of trying for,
and the gladsome chance of obtaining, the affections of Hazel Le
Mesurier. No, he must let matters take their course. He could but
advise the girl to cut short her visit, should she suffer any discomfort
more marked than heretofore. He would remind her that it was not
incumbent upon her to put up with any discomfort whatsoever--that she
need not consider herself selfish, or fear that she was wanting in
strength to endure, for wishing to return home, and in acting upon that
wish; for in such wise, he knew, would Hazel take herself to task: she
would resist such weakness, as she would deem it, with all the power of
her strong little nature--suffering much, that others should not suffer
little, as was her wont. He would counsel her to tell her mother of
Digby's importunities, should they become difficult to her own
management, or trouble her unduly.
Soon! ah, soon, he might win the right to shield her himself--Paul's
pulses stirred at the thought, his heart warmed within him--the right of
lover and true knight. Soon, soon. As yet she was a trustful,
affectionate child, at an age when a few months only of patient waiting,
of wholesome self-restraint, might see her blossom into a loving woman,
forced thereto by the very strength and warmth of his unspoken love,
even as a bud expands to a flower in the eloquent ardour of perpetual
and encompassing sunshine, however mute and unvoiced that sunshine
perforce must be.
As he thus mused, Hazel came down again in greatly recovered spirits;
for Helen had guessed more of that which disturbed her child's peace of
mind than the girl herself could have told her, or had acknowledged even
to herself; and with loving tact had soothed her as only a mother can.
"Don't stay away longer than you like, dearie," she had concluded, "and
Hazel, you would not wish that your motherling should not miss you, or
that the boys and Paul should be pleased to have you gone? They will all
be glad to have you back, and will appreciate you more than ever," she
added playfully, her heart telling her that there was no need of further
appreciation on the part of Mr. Paul Charteris, Paul had not heard
Hazel's light step upon the stair, so that she reached the hall and
stood confronting him before he knew of her presence.
"I am going now," she said. "Good-bye."
He took the outstretched hand and looked into the upturned eyes.
"You have not been troubling for me," she added anxiously, "about Digby?
He is very nice to me, and I don't really mind him--I thought I did, but
it was mostly because I did not want to go. I--I don't like leaving
mother, you know." So saying, the small hand wrung his, and withdrew
itself.
The two then proceeded together across the threshold and down the steps;
and, if hard upon the little victim, it was even harder upon him who led
her to the sacrifice.
*CHAPTER VIII*
Comfort, solid comfort, best describes The Beeches, its inmates, and all
appertaining to it and them. Solid comfort without luxury, ease without
laziness, happiness without a positively cloying sweetness.
John Travers was not handsome, but comfortable-looking; his figure,
perhaps, was becoming a thought too comfortable; but then John Travers
was fifty-five, and plenty had been his lot for nigh upon eightfold of
the proverbial seven years that go to make plenty a really established
fact. Then, too, he gave way, perhaps somewhat injudiciously, to a
liking for white waistcoats and rather large and conspicuous
watch-chains.
Of Elizabeth Travers, his wife, little need be told in description, for
much is learned of her ways and days in twenty-four hours. That she,
too, was comfortable need hardly be said; else John, who was a devoted
husband, would not have been so. But she was not in the least too
comfortable to be a fitting wife for John Travers, or the truly motherly
mother of his children. For surely a broad breast is the natural haven
for young heads, when wearied of the very fulness of the joys of
childhood, or stricken with its tragic, if fleeting griefs.
John and Elizabeth Travers had two sons and two daughters. What could
be more comfortable than that? Is not "two of each" in all good things
the very acme of satisfaction and contentment? The children themselves
were comfortable, considering their years; for if ever there is a period
more devoted than another to strange misgivings, fervent hopes, and
acute sensibilities, that period is youth; and none of these
characteristics can be said to be "comfortable" ones.
Digby, their first-born, now twenty-three years of age, and a student at
Oxford, was enjoying the long vacation under the comfortable parental
roof-tree. Of Francis, the second son, aged nineteen, was to be made
what is known as a gentleman farmer--an ever-increasing interest in the
somewhat laborious pursuits of tilling, ploughing, sowing, and
harvesting, not to mention a love of animals, making apparent at a very
early age the bent of the boy's mind. That he had not Digby's intellect
was obvious to those who knew both brothers; but that Francis was going
to do very well in his own line was everybody's opinion. His enthusiasm
for all bucolic pursuits, together with a keen--no, not a keen; there
was nothing keen about Francis--together with a good, sound judgment of
all things connected with them, was marked. If his eye lacked quick
observation or keen appreciation, as it lighted on some matter of
interest or beauty, it was steady, honest, trustworthy, and not without
a certain shrewdness. And it were hard upon him to criticise the
tendency of lip to part with lip; for there was nothing of weakness or
indecision about the large, well-cut mouth, which could close firmly
enough at such times when depth of thought or concentration of mind were
required of him. Rather should the characteristic be looked upon as the
natural consequence of open-air labour, of a nature that demands more
oxygen than can in reason be expected to find its way to the lungs by
the nasal channel alone; if the fact that to one who frequently studies
the sky for signs of changes of weather with the long, earnest scrutiny
bestowed by Francis Travers, was not in itself explanation enough for an
ofttimes open mouth.
The daughters, Doris and Phyllis, aged sixteen and twelve years, were
slim, fair-haired maidens. Doris, the elder, looked upon life with
grave eyes, seeing only its serious side, and determinedly facing that
aspect with resolute lips and somewhat pale cheeks, quaint and demure.
Phyllis, on the other hand, while in no way boisterous--sharing, indeed,
in some part her sister's quietude of mind and demeanour--was rosily
cheerful and a thorough child. It was quaint Doris's aim to keep her
thus; and odd it was to note the enforcement of the staid authority
which the slender four years of seniority gave to the girl in the
absence of their mother, or of their governess, Miss Manifold.
Miss Manifold--nicknamed "Sins and Wickedness" by Hugh and Teddie Le
Mesurier--the daughter of a Lincolnshire squire, long since deceased,
was a good woman, well liked by her two pupils, whose well-being she had
sincerely at heart. At the present moment she was absent from The
Beeches, being once more returned into the bosom of her family for the
Midsummer holidays. This fact, meaning as it did freedom of will and
action, combined with the pleasing circumstance that Hazel Le Mesurier's
impending visit was about to be realised, brought much rejoicing to the
girls; for even sober Doris was not impervious to the delights of a few
weeks' unrestricted leisure, nor unmindful of the advantages of living
for that short interval without the eye of supervision upon her every
movement.
She and Phyllis were, for the fourth time this morning, taking a survey
of the bedroom that had been allotted to their girl-guest--moving,
changing, and rearranging articles of furniture or ornament to suit
Hazel's queer taste and odd fancy. The bed they had dragged before one
of the windows, for Hazel had once confided to these two friends that
she liked nothing better than to sleep with her head pillowed on the
sill; only that it was not often that bed and sill chanced to stand in
the necessary relative position one to the other. Also the bed must
needs be wide enough to permit the full stretch of her limbs, when she
had twisted herself to this crosswise position. She assured Doris and
Phyllis that to gaze up at the stars until you fell asleep was conducive
to the dreaming of the most lovely dreams, whilst the soft fanning of
the summer night-air proved most pleasant and refreshing.
"And what if it rains?" her breathless auditors had asked.
"That is nice, too, in its way," Hazel had made answer. "But once," she
added ruefully, "when I was sleeping so, I was so sound asleep that it
did not wake me until my hair was drenched, and I had to get up and rub
it with a towel for nearly two hours."
"How your arms must have ached," Doris said, eyeing the heavy brown
mane, half in admiration, half in pity.
"And I was so sleepy," Hazel continued, "that every time I stopped to
rest my arms a moment I found myself nodding, with the towel in my lap."
"Didn't you have a bad cold the next day?" Phyllis asked.
"No, I never catch cold," Hazel answered. "It is being so much in the
open air, I suppose."
The dressing-table, too, was never to block a window and obscure the
view in Hazel's room; and there must always be flowers upon it. Having
ascertained that all was to her liking, Phyllis and Doris fared forth to
the garden gate, rightly judging that, had their brother found Hazel
ready to accompany him, the two must long ere this have made their
appearance.
It was a pretty view that stretched away before The Beeches. As they
stood at the entrance gate, which faced the road, the girls looked upon
a wide, sunny tract of undulating common ground, ablaze with yellow
gorse. Trending toward the west in long dark line was a ridge of
fir-trees sharply defined and almost black against the even blue of the
sky, but merging into soft and softer gradations of consistency and
colour on the wood's southern extremity, its outline finally well-nigh
lost in a mist of feathery larches. To the east was a low range of
hills with brown, thatched, and red-tiled cottages and farmhouses dotted
at intervals at its base, whilst a rivulet that flowed past the
Travers's estate, forming indeed the boundary on its right flank, wended
its way in and out, twisting and twining, a white ribbon shot with
sunlight, till lost to sight in the valley.
And there, round the bend came the trap. Hazel, perched high, her hands
encased in Digby Travers's thick gloves, was driving, to her own evident
delight and self-importance, having successfully eluded her companion's
practically demonstrated teaching by declaring that she did not care
what was the orthodox way of manipulating the reins; that she and the
horse understood one another well enough.
Hazel was delighted with her room, and had no suggestions to offer
respecting any change in the position of its furniture. Everything was
perfect, she frankly told her gratified friends. Her quick eye had
lighted upon a tiny escritoire standing in one corner, and a thought
flashed into her mind, an idea as novel to her as it was pleasing. She
grasped the delightful idea, seized upon it, and stowed it carefully
away in a corner of her brain, until such time as she should have
leisure to look into the alluring possibilities it suggested--to
cogitate without fear of interruption.
Just now, with very active assistance from Doris and Phyllis, Hazel was
removing the dust of travel from her person.
When the three girls descended to the dining-room for luncheon, they
found the rest of the family already there assembled; and Hazel received
a warm kiss from the motherly Mrs. Travers, whilst Mr. Travers took her
right hand, and Francis possessed himself of her left; Doris and Phyllis
hovered about her; Digby looked on approvingly. Having been thus duly
welcomed and received into the bosom of the family, Hazel, as the party
seated themselves around the table, addressed herself to Francis.
"Well, farmer," she said, with _bonne camaraderie_, "and how are the
crops?"
"They are coming on all right," he replied, somewhat sheepishly. He
liked Hazel; but considered her a terrible little tease. She had always
laughed at his manner of walking, declaring that he swayed backwards and
forwards, as a sailor will roll from side to side.
"It comes of always imagining that you are stepping over ploughed
furrows," she told him, "just as a horse is trained to step high by
having obstacles put in his way."
"And the live stock?" she went on.
"Flourishing, thank you," he returned.
"Hens sitting?" she asked. "And oh, Francis, did that baby pig learn to
grunt properly, the one that loved wallowing in the mire?"
But here her hostess claimed the girl's attention, and Francis settled
himself to the business in hand--luncheon--inwardly resolving to be even
with Hazel yet.
The day passed pleasantly enough, resting with books and work in the
shade during the afternoon, walking through the sunlit meadows when the
heat of the day was subsiding. In the evening the young folk
entertained each other with music, Hazel singing some quaint songs in
her own way--an adorable little way in the opinion of Paul Charteris, an
opinion shared to-night most fervently by Digby Travers.
Soon after ten o'clock Hazel found herself alone at last, with hours
before her, supposing she could manage to keep awake, for meditation
upon the scheme that had come to her at sight of the little
writing-table. Her own room at home did not boast such a convenience,
and it is to be presumed that the publicity of the position of the few
desks and escritoires about the house had prevented the idea from
occurring to Hazel's mind before.
She would write a story--a thrilling, exciting story--and make all the
money she could possibly want! Here, all alone in the undisturbed quiet
of her own room, she would write diligently, and her week's visit might
result in half-a-dozen stories for Teddie to take to some editor!
Hazel was perturbed by no fear that she might lack talent and ability,
but it was not long before she perceived that she was mistaken in the
amount of work that she could accomplish in so short a time. She wisely
refrained from installing herself at the desk that night, thinking that
she could not do better in these first hours, while all was exciting and
new in this plan of work, than get to bed as quickly as possible, and
devote an hour or two to the evolving of a plot, and to the construction
of her first story, before sleep should come upon her.
So far from thinking it hard to conjure up matter upon which to base her
tale, the difficulty seemed to lie in the fact that she must perforce
write only one at a time, if she wished to be conscientious and
systematic. All through the washing of her face and hands, and the
brushing of her hair, mechanically performed, her head was teeming with
all manner of stirring incidents, which rose up in her imagination,
refusing to be placed in any nice order of sequence; inconsistent with
one another; contending together--obviously "copy" for many stories of
widely different natures.
"And then there is my style," the would-be authoress reflected, as she
sank down at length among the pillows. "I wonder what my style will be:
whether I have to find one--to settle upon one of many--or whether a
particular one will come to me of itself."
And this was as far as Hazel got that first night.
*CHAPTER IX*
Hazel was awakened next morning by an unaccustomed sound that seemed for
some time to have penetrated her sleep-wrapped senses, without rousing
them to full consciousness. She lay still, and listened with all her
ears; but there was no renewal of the disturbance, and she was about to
compose herself to sleep--the clock upon the mantel-shelf telling her
she might do so for another half-hour--when the unwonted strains began
again. They were not those of a donkey braying, nor of a horse
whinnying, nor of a cock crowing, but of a young man singing.
It was not a very tuneful performance, but it was most fervently and
expressively rendered; and Hazel, as it dawned upon her that she was the
subject of the morning serenade, hearkened with very mixed emotions.
"I suppose he _considers_ it serenading," she said to herself; and she
experienced a feeling of importance, intermingled with awe. "I thought
they had gone out of fashion," she meditated. "Certainly they have in
England: I suppose Digby's continental trips have given him foreign
notions."
I stand at your window sighing
As the weary hours go by,
And the time is slowly dying
"Horribly," Hazel's reflections broke in. "Why don't you hurry up, or
get some one to mark it for you?"
That once too quick did fly.
"What a good thing that he has not a guitar! It would make a dreadful
jumble. You need not wail so, if the pain I have caused you is so
exquisite," she apostrophised the anguished lover; and scorn took
possession of her. "If you were a cat, one would pour water on you. I
am not sure if one would not be justified in thinking you were a cat,"
and her eyes sparkled with fun and mischief.
Despite the foreign notions laid to his charge, the young man's sense of
the fitness of things kept him from standing long under one window in
particular, even while the beauty of the flowering shrub beneath the
guest-chamber gave excuse for a somewhat lingering gait in passing; so
that it was only now and again that Hazel caught a connected line or two
of the impassioned refrain; while his sisters, not to mention his father
and mother, were regaled with a goodly, if not quite with an even share,
till Francis thrust a betousled head from his window and asked his
brother to "stow it," a request which caused the disconsolate Digby to
wander farther from the house, and to break into fresh melody among the
trees that skirted the lawn.
Hazel had unexpected good fortune, in that the morning was passed in
almost uninterrupted silence; for, breakfast over, Mr. Travers and his
sons furnished themselves with fishing-tackle and, begging the girls to
join the expedition and witness sport, the party made their way down to
the river side and were soon ranged along its near bank. Hazel was not
long in seizing the opportunity thus offered, and was soon lost in her
own reflections.
Her mind was quieter now than last night, when, in the first hours of
possessing the exciting idea of a scheme of action so congenial to her,
all had been pleasurable turmoil. Now she could think more connectedly,
could shape her thoughts to some end. She wisely resolved to leave
style alone--at all events at first--until she had ascertained for a
fact that the style which came naturally to her was poor. She would be
careful concerning grammar, but she had always detested the sight of the
outside cover of books upon the subject, and so far as she could
remember, had never opened one.
She set up an imaginary stage in her mind, bringing her characters one
by one to bow before her, and to ask modestly whether they would please
her; what relations they were to bear one to another; what influence
life upon life. Then the grouping must be pleasingly harmonious or
disturbingly discordant: there must be nothing tame nor indifferent
about her work.
"We need not be so absolutely dumb," Digby Travers murmured, and Hazel
awoke with a start. "I'd rather lose all the fish, if catching it can
only be accomplished by not talking to you, or not hearing you talk."
"Hush," Hazel rejoined. "The others don't feel like that, and besides,"
she added truthfully, "I want to think."
"Oh, well," the young man returned, in a somewhat injured tone, "that is
another thing, of course"; and he continued his occupation in gloomy
silence, the while Hazel resumed her thread of cogitation. Presently she
began to realise that she must be simpler and more methodical in her
ideas--less profound. After all, she was not undertaking the writing of
a book. Let her conjure up some pretty little story, and write it
carefully and faithfully--perhaps the pathos and the humour would take
care of themselves.
That night, in the seclusion of her own room, she set to work, in a
fever of energy and fervent purpose. She had gone upstairs at ten, but
it was nigh upon one o'clock when the girl at length extinguished her
light and laid her down to rest. Even then sleep did not come to her
quickly, for her brain was thoroughly roused and excited.
Three evenings devoted to this work sufficed to complete her story, and
on the fourth, after carefully revising her work, she proceeded to write
it out neatly, and the result of her labour was to her own entire
satisfaction.
Anticipating the certainty of having all in readiness before she slept,
she had, during the day, addressed a letter to Teddie asking him to meet
her in town next morning, which epistle she directed to his lodging; for
she felt the urgency of completing all such arrangements from her
friends' house, wishing as she did to keep all secret until such time as
she could ask for sympathy in her disappointment, or for congratulations
in her success.
She had little difficulty in gaining the consent of Mrs. Travers to this
expedition. She did not deem it necessary to take her kind hostess
wholly into her confidence: Mrs. Travers was satisfied with the girl's
assurance that her mother would not object to what she was about to do,
provided Teddie was with her, and good-naturedly acquiesced in her
entreaty that she might be allowed to keep her little secret from every
one but the brother, whose aid was essential in the completion of her
business.