WHAT COMES OF ON-DIT.
Wych Hazel had not wanted to come home. But neither did she at
all wish to arouse Mr. Falkirk's suspicions by a too strenuous
resistance; and besides, when he really made up his mind to a
thing, she had to yield; so, with much secret trepidation, and a
particularly wayward outside development, she made the journey;
and late the next night after Dr. Arthur's revelations, laid her head
on the pillows on her own room at Chickaree, with a strange little
feeling of gladness, that half began to take the trepidation in hand.
Wellit was not the end of September yet: she would have a little
breathing space. And thenWych Hazel dropped asleep.
Things 'happen,' as we say, strangely sometimes. Threads which
should lie smooth and straight alongside of each other and make
no confusion, get all snarled, and twisted, and thrown crosswise of
each other by just a little breeze of influence, or some slight
impulse on one side. And so it fell next day.
Mrs. Powder, who had also been at Newport, and left it three days
before Wych Hazel, had engaged her and Mr. Falkirk to lunch for
this very day, the next after their arrival. That was one thread, not
necessarily touching, one would say, the grand event of the day,
which was Rollo's coming and visit at Chickaree. For that visit was
to have been made right early in the morning, and Collingwood
was ordered, and even mounted, when there came a message from
the mills. Some complication or accident of business made the
master's presence necessary. Rollo went to the Hollow, and stayed
there till he had but just time left to get to Chickaree before
luncheon. This thread was twisted.
The carriage at the door. Rollo threw himself off his horse and
went in. He was too late. Just within the door he met the little lady
he came to see, standing in her pretty draperies of mantle and veil,
ready for her drive; and Mr. Falkirk was behind her.
'O Mr. Rollo!' she said (fortified with this last fact) 'you have come
for lunch!'
'Have I?' said he, as he took her hand in the old-fashioned way. 'I
see I shall not get it.'
'Will getting it to-morrow help you to dispense with it to-day? We
are engaged at Mrs. Powder's. You see I _must_ go.'
'I see you must go. I have been delayed.'
Mr. Falkirk, according to his accustomed tactics, passed out upon
the veranda after giving his own greeting, leaving the others alone.
Rollo had come with a face flushed with pleasure and riding; now
a certain shade fell upon it; his brow grew grave, as if with sudden
thought.
'I will not detain you,' he said, after seeing that Mr. Falkirk was at
a safe distance; 'only let me ask one question. Arthur Maryland
says he saw you waltzing with that English Crofton. I know it is
not true; but tell me so, that I may contradict him. He was
mistaken.'
'Dr. Arthur! was _he_ there?' voice and face too shewed a sudden
check.
'But he did not see that?' said Rollo, with eyes which seemed as if
they would deny the fact by sheer force of will.
Her eyes had no more than glanced at him hitherto, shyly
withholding themselves. But now they looked full into his face,
using the old, wistful, girlish right of search; watching him as
keenly as sometimes he watched her. She answered gravely:
'How could Dr. Arthur be mistaken in what he says he saw?'
'Is it _true?_' came with an astonished, fiery glance of the gray eyes.
She draw herself up a little, stepping back.
'It is truesince he says sothat he saw me among the rest.'
It is not often that we see a man lose colour from intense feeling.
Wych Hazel's eyes saw it now. Rollo stood still before her, quite
still, for a space of time that neither could measure, growing very
pale, while at the same time the lines on lip and brow gradually
took a firmer and firmer set. Motionless as an iron statue, and
assuming more and more the fixedness of one, he stood, while
minute after minute slipped by. To Wych Hazel the time probably
seemed measureless and endless; while to Rollo, in the struggle
and tumultuous whirl of feeling, it was only a single sharp point of
existence. He stood with his eyes cast down; and without raising
them, without uttering another syllable, for which I suppose he had
not self-control, at last he bowed gravely and low, and turned
away. In another minute, the bay horse and his rider went past the
door and were gone.
On her part, Wych Hazel had stood waiting, expecting him to
speak, scanning his face with eager scrutiny. Then, with a grave
shadow of disappointment upon her own, looked down again,
nerving herself for the words of anger which must follow such a
look. But when he turned, she raised her head quickly and looked
after him, following with her eyes as long as eyes could follow,
listening as long as ears could hearthen drew her veil over her
face and went down and entered the carriage. Answering,
somehow, Mr. Falkirk's words; and, somehow, taking her part in
Mrs. Powder's festivities.
O the interminable length of those bridges from life-point to life-
point, over which we must sometimes pass at a foot-pace! Is
anything more intolerable than the monotonous tramp, tramp, of
the meaningless steps? Is anything more sickening than the easy
sway of the bridge, which seems to make the whole world reel,
while in truth it is only ourselves? If Wych Hazel had been asked
afterwards who was at Mrs. Powder's, and what was said, and
when she came home, she could not have told a word. She came
home with a scarlet spot on either cheek, burning brighter and
brighter. They were very beautiful, people said.
But to-morrow he would come, when his anger was cooled down.
What if he did?for pain this time had used a trident. He had
doubted her. Then he _could_ doubt her! _Then_, he never could trust.
And what was anything after that? Not her discretion merely, as
before; not her obedience; but her word! Well, he would come, and
she would tell himthat would be one little shred of comfort, at
least. But he had looked at her _so!_ and thenhe had turned his
eyes away. And no matter what she told him, or what he might
believe then, that look had gone down to the depths of her heart.
He had doubted her!
Well, the night wore away, somehow, between bitter waking pain
and snatches of exhausted sleep; and then the morningas
mornings sometimes willseemed to speak comfort. He would
come, and she would tell him.
But he did not come. And one day followed another, and still there
came not even a message; and Wych Hazel waited. No one
guessed how little she eat in those days, no one guessed how little
she slept; the one thing she knew of herself was, that no earthly
temptation could have made her leave the house for five minutes.
She rose up earlyfor he might come then; and she sat up till
impossible hours, lest they might be the only ones left free by
business. But under all this watching, the keen, three-pointed pain
never relaxed its pressure. What was the use of anything, after
that? and yet she longed for his coming with an intensity that could
not be measured.
Earlier in the year,certainly before his declaration,she would
not have waited so long, without taking the matter into her own
hands and writing. But the twenty-fifth was close at hand; how
could she do anything to bring herself to his notice, or call him to
her side? And he was almost a stranger now; she had seen him but
once since near a year ago. And on the twenty-fifth, at least, she
must see him. Alas! what could she say to him then? unless
that. But she could not think of it now. Her mind clasped hold of
just one thought: he will come then. 'He wants me to understand
how angry he is,' thought Hazel to herself as the tenth day crept
slowly by. 'Does he think I am made of iron, like himself, I
wonder?'
And so we judge and misjudge each other, the best of us; and how
can we help it? Misjudgments will be, must be; the only thing left
to human finiteness and short-sightedness is frank dealing. There
is one possible remedy in that.
Rollo did not come to Chickaree, and he did not write. How long
Wych could have borne to wait without herself writing, to clear
herself, it is difficult to say. A week passed, the second week was
in progress, the twenty-fifth was not more than a week off, when
Mr. Falkirk announced at dinner one day that Rollo was just
setting off upon a journey.
'He's going to see some great manufacturing establishment in the
northeast somewhere, and can't attend to my business, he tells me,
before the fifth or sixth of next month; he hopes to be back by that
time.'
Mr. Falkirk thought the non-intercourse between the Hollow and
Chickaree a very significant fact; but it was not his plan to annoy
his ward by seeming to see anything it was not necessary he
should see. It cannot be said that he was quite satisfied with the
condition of things, indeed; however, he knew it was hopeless to
attack Wych Hazel in the hope of getting information; and with
what patience he might, he waited too; the third in that unrestful
attitude.
With that strange double life which she had been leading of late,
Wych Hazel heard Mr. Falkirk's announcement and poured out his
'after-dinner coffee' with a steady hand. Then asked when Mr.
Rollo was to go. He had gone already, that very day. And till when
must this other business wait? Till the second week in October.
Then she knew that he had thrown her off. No other earthly thing
would have kept him away on the twenty-fifth, without even a
word. Could he have done it, unless his liking for her had
changed? _Would_ he have done it, caring for her asshe thought
he had cared a year ago? With these questions beating back and
forth in her mind,so she went though the rest of the day.
Receiving visiters, giving Mr. Falkirk his tea, sitting with him
through the evening; until, at last, it was done and he had gone,
and she could be alone. It never even crossed her mind to go to bed
that night.
Whatever the new day may do with things that are sure, it is yet
rather gentle with uncertainties; making fair little suggestions, and
giving stray touches of light, in a way that is altogether hopeful
and beguiling. And so, when that weary moonlight night had spent
its glitter, and the tender dawn came up, Hazel breathed free over a
new thought. Mr. Falkirk might be mistaken! His own business
might fill Mr. Rollo's hands until the second week in October,
that word proved nothing at all about his staying away. She would
wait and see. No use in trusting people just while you can keep
watch. And so, though the secret pain at her heart did never
disappear, and though at best her next meeting with Mr. Rollo
could not be very pleasant, still Hazel did hold up her head, and
hope, and wait, with a woman's ready faith, and a courage that died
out in the twilight and revived in the dawn, and kept her in a fever
of suspense and expectation. It wearied her so unspeakably, in the
long hours of practical daylight and unmanageable night, that
sometimes she could hardly bear it. The world seemed to turn
round till she could not catch her thoughts; and nerves overstrung
and on the watch, made her start and grow pale with the
commonest little sounds of every day and every night.
She had never had many people to love; she had never (before)
loved anybody very much; and the truth and dignity which had
kept her from all forms of love-trifling, so kept the hidden
treasures of her heart all sparkling with their own freshness. They
had never been passed about from hand to hand; no weather-stains,
no worn-out impressions were there. What the amount might be,
Wych Hazel had never guessed until in these dark days she began
to tell it over; making herself feel so poor! For, after all, what is
the use of a treasure which nobody wants?
Not the least among her troubles was the painful hiding them all.
She must laugh and talk and entertain Mr. Falkirk; she must guard
her face when the mail-bag came in, and steady the little hand
stretched out for her letters; must meet and turn off all Mrs.
Bywank's looks and words; must dress and go out, and dress and
receive people at home. Ah, how hard it was!and no one to
whom she could speak, no lap where she could lay down her head,
and pour out her sorrows.
Slowly, as the days went by, and hope grew fainter, and the dawn
turned cold, there grew up in Wych Hazel's mind an intense
longing to lay hold of something that was still; something that
would stand; something beyond the wind and above the waves;
and slowly, gradually, the words she had read to Gyda came back,
and made themselves a power in her mind:
"I will be with him in trouble."
Oh for some one to be with her! Oh for something she could grasp,
and stop this endless swaying and rocking and trembling of all
things else! And then, following close, came other words, more
lately learned. Not now read over, with those pencil marks beside
them; but read often enough before, happily, to have been learned
by heart; and now passing and re-passing in unceasing procession
before her thoughts.
"For the love of Christ constraineth us."
The love that could be counted on; the Presence that was sure!
And so, reaching her hands out blindly through the dark, the girl
did now and then lay hold of the Eternal strength, and for a while
sometimes found rest. But there came other days and hours when
she seemed to be clinging to she hardly knew what, with the full
rush and sweeping of the tide around her; conscious only that she
was not quite swept away; until when at last the twenty-third was
past, and three days of grace had followed suit, Hazel rose up one
morning with this one thought: if she did not see somebody to
speak to, she should die.