Read Ebook: Wych Hazel by Warner Anna Bartlett Warner Susan

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Ebook has 1949 lines and 74096 words, and 39 pages

Mr. Falkirk was silent again.

'No,' said Wych Hazel, without raising her head, and again not stopping to measure her words. 'You would have stood there till this time, if I had not spoken!'

'Would I?' said Rollo.

'And how came you to be there at all at that time of night?' said Mr. Falkirk.

'On my way from the cars.'

'Cars, where?'

'Henderson.'

'Walk from Henderson!' said Mr. Falkirk.

'Save time. I wanted to be here to-day.' The answers were all short and grave, as a man speaks who has no words that he wants to say.

'And Mr. Rollo thought', said Hazel, looking up, 'that it was better for me to come home from Dr. Maryland's than from the woods. And--when he spoke of it--I supposed you would say that too, Mr. Falkirk.'

But Mr. Falkirk vouchsafed no corroboration of this opinion.

'Did I do well, sir?' she said a little eagerly, but meaning now the whole night's work. 'Did I do ill? Was I a bit like your old ideal--"a woman" and "brave"? Or was I only a girl, and very foolish?' They were so silent, these men!--it tried her. Did they, in their worldly wisdom, see any better way out of her hard places, than her seventeen years' inexperience had found, at such a cost? The brown eyes looked searchingly at Mr. Falkirk, and again for an instant went beyond him to Mr. Rollo.

'Answer, Mr. Falkirk!' said the younger man.

'My dear,' said Wych Hazel's guardian, 'if I had been a quarter as much a man as you have proved yourself a woman, your bravery never would have been so tried.'

'And the bravery was as much as the womanliness!' said the other, in the short, terse way of all his words this afternoon; no air of compliment whatever hanging about the words.

She answered with only a deep flush of pleasure, and eyes that went down now, and a smile just playing round the corners of her mouth--the first that had been there that afternoon. It may be remarked that there was no pleasure in either of the other faces.

'Who knows about this?' said Mr. Falkirk, suddenly.

'Nobody,' said Rollo.

'Not Miss Maryland?'

'I could answer for her; but she knows nothing.'

Wych Hazel looked up, listening. It was interesting to hear somebody else talk now. Talk was stayed, however. Both men were thinking; their thoughts did not run easily into spoken words. Or not while she was present; for after a sudden excursion up stairs to see what notes and messages might need attention, on returning she found the two deep in talk; Rollo seated near the head of Mr. Falkirk's couch, and bending towards him. He sprang up as Wych hazel came in and took leave; shaking Mr. Falkirk's hand cordially and then clasping Wych Hazel's. For the first time then a gleam of his usual gay humour broke on his lips and in his eye, as he said softly:

'I should have made you speak before that!'

KITTY FISHER.

Nothing but the most superb propriety was to be expected at Mrs. Powder's; nevertheless Wych Hazel went escorted by Prim and Rollo in Dr; Maryland's rockaway. Dr. Maryland himself had been persuaded to the dinner, and it was on his arm Miss Kennedy made her entrance upon the company. Something unlike anything the doctor had ever taken charge of before,--in a dress of tea-rose colour this time, and with only tea-roses for trimming.

It was not a large company assembled for dinner, though everybody was expected in the evening. This was a different affair from Merricksdale; on old proud family name in the mistress of the mansion; old fashioned respectability and modern fashion commingled in the house and entertainment; the dinner party very strictly chosen. Beyond that fact, it was not perhaps remarkable. After dinner Dr. Maryland went home; and gayer and younger began to pour in. Following close upon Mrs. Merrick's entertainment, this evening too had the adornment of the full moon; and as this party also was an out- door one, as much as people chose to have it so, the adornment was material. A large pleasure ground around the house, half garden, half shrubbery, was open to promenaders; and at certain points there were lights and seats and music and refreshments; the last two not necessarily together. On this pleasure ground opened the windows of the drawing room and to this led the steps of the piazza; and so it came to pass in the course of the evening that the house was pretty well deserted of all but the elderly part of the guests.

In this state of things, said elderly portion of the company might as well be at home for all the care they are able to bestow on the younger. Wandering in shadow and light, in and out through the winding walks, blending in groups and scattered in couples, the young friends of Mrs. Powder did pretty much as they pleased. But one thing Wych Hazel had cause to suspect as the evening wore on, that though her guardian proper was fast at-home, she had an active actual guardian much nearer to her, and in fact never very far off for long at a time. Indeed he paraded no attentions, either before Wych Hazel's eyes or the eyes of the public; but if she wanted anything, Rollo found it out; if she needed anything, he was at hand to give it. His care did not burden her, nor make itself at all conspicuous to other people; nevertheless she surely could not but be conscious of it. This by the way.

Dr. Maryland had not been gone long; the new arrivals were just pouring in; when a seat beside Wych Hazel was taken by Mr. Nightingale.

'You were at Merricksdale the other night?' he said after the first compliments.

'Yes, for a while.'

'I knew you would be. I was in despair that I could not get there;--but engagements--contretemps--held us fast. I see now how much I lost.'

'Then you are released from imaginary evils,--that must be a comfort.'

'Do you know,' said Stuart, 'I think the toilet is a fine art?'

She did not answer, looking at two or three somewhat remarkable specimens of the art that just then swept by.

'Who is Miss Fisher, Mr. Nightingale?' she asked suddenly.

'O don't you know Kitty? To be sure, she has just come.'

'No, I do not know her. May I know who she is?'

'Not to know her, argues--Well, it isn't so extreme a case as that. Miss Fisher, for character, is the most amiable of persons; for accomplishments, she can do everything; for connections, she is a niece, I believe, of Dr. Maryland's.'

'Of Dr. Maryland's!--O that is good,' said Wych Hazel. 'Is she like Primrose?'

'She is more--like--a purple snap dragon,' said Stuart, reflectively. 'Do you read characters in flowers? and then look out for their moral prototypes in the social world?'

'I do not believe I ever had the credit of "looking out" for anything!--Good evening, Mr. Simms.'

' "It was the witching hour of night!" '--quoted Mr. Simms with a deprecating gesture. 'Really, Miss Kennedy, I do not see why the story books make it out such a misfortune for a man to be turned to stone. I think, in some circumstances, it is surely the best thing that can happen to him. There is Nightingale, now--he would feel no end better for a slight infusion of silica!'--and with another profound reverence, Mr. Simms moved off.

'To furnish people with quotations--as a general thing,' said Wych Hazel.

'Precisely my idea. And that's stupid, for people don't want them. It looks bright out among Mrs. Powder's bushes--shall we go and try how it feels?'

It was pretty, and pleasant. Moonlight and lamps do make a witching world of it; and under the various lights flitted such a multitude of gay creatures that Mr. Falkirk's favourite allusion to Enchanted ground would have been more than usually appropriate. All the colours in the rainbow, gleaming by turns in all possible alternations and degrees of light and shadow; a moving kaleidoscope of humanity; the eye at least was entertained. And Stuart endeavoured to find entertainment for the ear of his companion. They wandered up and down, in and out; not meeting many people; in the changing lights it was easy to miss anybody at pleasure. In the course of the walk Stuart begged for a ride with Miss Kennedy, again negatived on the plea that Miss Kennedy's horses were not yet come. Stuart immediately besought to be allowed to supply that want for the occasion. His aunt had a nice little Canadian pony.

'I cannot tell,' said Wych Hazel, gaily. 'You know I must ask Mr. Falkirk.'

'You do not mean that?' said Stuart.

'Why of course I mean it.'

'Is it possible you are in such bondage? But by the way, there is going to be some singing presently, which I think you will like. I have been counting upon it for you.'

'Is there?' she said,--'where? You are right in the fact, Mr. Nightingale, but quite wrong as to terms. I mean, the terms give a false impression of the fact. Where is the music to be, Mr. Rollo?' For Rollo, prowling about in the shrubbery, had at the moment joined them. He answered rather absently, that he believed it was to be in the garden.

'Do you understand, Mr. Nightingale?'--Wych Hazel resumed, turning to her other companion--'that is a mistake.'

'Can you prove it? But apropos, I am right in supposing that you are fond of music? That is true, isn't it?'

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