Wych Hazel Part 72

'Then how did he know where you were?'

'Mr. Rollo seems to be a man who gives close attention to his duties,'--rather dryly.

'I was the proper person to be applied to,' muttered Mr.

Falkirk. 'I should like to be informed how this came about?'

But Miss Hazel not giving--as indeed she was in no position to give--any light on this point, Mr. Falkirk walked a little more, and then brought up with:

'Don't go again, my dear.'

'I am not likely to go often anywhere, at such a risk!' said Wych Hazel, the tide beginning to overflow again.--'Poor little me!' she broke out, in a tone that was sorrowful as well as impatient,--'always in charge of two policemen! Why, you could almost keep a convict in order with that!' Then in a moment she sprang up, and coming to her guardian's side laid her hand on his arm. 'I beg your pardon, Mr. Falkirk! I did not mean it in any way to hurt you.'

'No, my dear,' said her guardian, gently, laying his hand on hers. 'I am not hurt. I understand, as I ought, having seen you twitch yourself out of leading-strings ever since you were old enough to go. It is rather hard upon you. But how came it to your knowledge, Hazel?' And Mr. Falkirk looked grave.

'It came--through somebody telling Mrs. Coles what was none of her business,' said the girl, with more energy than exactness of wording.

'Who did that?'

'I am sure I don't know, sir. She talks as if she had known it always.'

'Like enough. And she told you! The whole story, my dear?'

added Mr. Falkirk, gently and softly.

'I hope there is nothing more!' said Hazel, again donning her scarlet in hot taste.

'Enough and too much!' muttered Mr. Falkirk. 'Poor child! So the old guardian is better than the young one, my dear?'

'It used to be supposed,' said the girl, dancing off out of the room, 'that twice one is two. But I am inclined to think that twice one is six!'--Which was all the satisfaction Mr.

Falkirk got.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

FRIENDLY TONGUES.

Yes, it was very hard for her; much harder than any one knew but herself. The joke was too striking to be pa.s.sed by, even in the case of an ordinary person; but when it was Miss Kennedy,--heiress, beauty, and queen of favour,--all tongues took it up. She could go nowhere, wear nothing, do nothing, without meeting that one subject face to face. Many things brought it forward. Kitty Fisher of course had exasperation in her heart; but there were other (supposably) gentle b.r.e.a.s.t.s where even less lovely feelings, of shorter names, found lodgment. Hazel was condoled with, laughed at, twitted, by turns; until even Mr. Rollo's name in the distance made her shrink. Mrs. Coles had not (apparently) made known the conditions upon which he had a.s.sumed his office; but Wych Hazel was in daily terror lest she would; and as people often graze the truth which yet they do not know, so hardest of all to bear just now, were Kitty Fisher's two new names for her: 'the d.u.c.h.ess,' and 'Your Grace.' Most people indeed did not know their point, ignorant of Prim's pet name for Mr. Rollo; but Wych Hazel needed no telling; and her face was sometimes a thing to see.

That was the worst of it!--it _was_ a thing to see. And so, while now and then one of her special gentlemen friends would interpose, and draw the strokes upon himself; yet her delicate, womanly fencing was so pretty, so novel; it was such sport to watch the little hands turn off and parry Kitty Fisher's rude thrusts; that few masculine hearts were unselfish enough to forego it. There were actual wagers out as to how long 'the d.u.c.h.ess' could carry it on without losing her temper or clipping the truth; and how soon 'the Fisher' would get tired and give it up. And as for the tokens in Miss Kennedy's face sometimes, who that had once seen them did not watch to see them again? Other people began to take up the new t.i.tles; and Mme. Lasalle made courtesies to 'the d.u.c.h.ess,' and Stuart Nightingale and Mr. May bowed low before 'her Grace,'

entreating her hand for the quadrille or the promenade.

'And some night he will be standing by and hear them say it!'

thought Wych Hazel to herself. What should she do? Where should she go?

Since the talk on the drive home from Mme. Lasalle's, the girl had never set foot in one the round dances. Not that she gave in to Mr. Rollo's strictures,--how could _she_ be mistaken?--but because the talk had left an unbearable a.s.sociation about everything that looked like a round dance. There was the constant remembrance of the words he had spoken,--there was the constant fear that he might stand by and think those thoughts again. Then she had been extremely disgusted with Kitty Fisher's new figures; and so, on the whole, in the face of persuasions and charges of affectation, Miss Kennedy could be had for nothing but reels, country dances, and quadrilles.

Miss Fisher and her set were furious, of course; for all the gentlemen liked what Miss Kennedy liked: there was no use talking about it.

If anybody had asked the girl in those weeks before the fancy ball what she was doing--and why she wanted to do it,--she would have found it hard to tell. Braving out people's tongues, was one thing; and plunging into all sorts of escapades because any day they might be forbidden, was another. A sort of wild resolving that her young guardian should _not_ feel his power; and endeavour to prove to him that anybody aspiring to that office without her leave asked and obtained, was likely to serve a short term.

'Is it only till you marry, my dear?--or is it for life?' Mme.

Lasalle said, meaningly. And Hazel laughed off an answer, and set her little foot down (mentally) with tremendous force.

Wouldn't she marry whom she liked--_if_ she liked?

'He proposes to make you his wife'--Mrs. Coles had said. She would like to know what his 'proposing' had to do with it?-- except, perhaps, as an initiatory step.

It was a new version of _Katharine and Petruchio_,--sneered Kitty Fisher.

It was a striking instance of disinterested benevolence--in so young a man! chimed in Mrs. Seaton,--until at last Hazel rushed into anything that would put a black coat or whirl of white muslin between her and her tormentors. If she was in truth running away from herself as well, the confusion was too great for her to know it just then. The very idea of stopping to think what he meant and what she meant, frightened her; and then she ran faster than ever.

Of all this Rollo was but slightly aware. Yet he did guess at part of it. He had seen too much of both men and women not to know in a measure what must be the natural effect of circ.u.mstances. And he would have saved Miss Kennedy the worst of it,--only he could not. He was sometimes at the entertainments where she met so much exasperation, and saw from a distance as it were the wild whirl of her gaiety.

Perhaps he guessed at the meaning of that too. But he was only a man, and he could not be sure. He never asked her to dance himself, and never joined a quadrille or reel when she was one of the set. And that is nearly tantamount to saying he did not dance at all. For reels and quadrilles were very much out of favour, and rarely adopted except just for Miss Kennedy. And in truth Mr. Rollo in this state of affairs chose to be only now and then seen at evening entertainments. When there he was rather Spanish in his manners, after the old Catskill fas.h.i.+on.

Very Spanish indeed Mrs. Coles found him at home; his lofty courtesy kept her at the extreme distance permitted in the grace of good manners.

Meanwhile, no _tete-a-tete_ conversation had been practicable with Wych Hazel. He had sought it; but she refused his invitations to ride, and while she was in that mood he did not choose either to risk being turned away again from the Chickaree door, or to encounter her in a drawing-room full of company. However, when a good many days had come and gone in this state of estrangement, Rollo began to feel that it was getting unbearable. So he rode up to Chickaree one day just at luncheon time.

Miss Kennedy was not at home. Not at home in the honest sense of the words. Mr. Rollo asked for Mrs. Byw.a.n.k, and marched straight to the housekeeper's room. And Mrs. Byw.a.n.k's greeting made him feel that, for some reason, he had come at the right time. She begged him to sit down, and ordered luncheon; asking if he was in haste, or if they might wait a little for Miss Wych?

'She walked down to Mr. Falkirk's a long time ago,' said the housekeeper, 'but I am looking for her every minute. Unless you cannot wait, Mr. Rollo?'

He would wait; and desired to have Mrs. Byw.a.n.k's report touching the health of her young mistress. Mrs. Byw.a.n.k looked perplexed.

'She's not herself, sir,' she answered slowly. 'And yet it would be hard to explain that. I've been wanting to see you, Mr. Rollo, more than I can say; and now you are here I hardly know how to tell why.'

'That makes me wish very much you would find out.'

'Phoebe will have it she is sick,' said the housekeeper, pondering,--'and sometimes I think so myself. I know she goes out too much. And stays up too late. Why, the last time she came from Governor Powder's I was frightened half to death.'

'That was two weeks ago?'

'Yes, Mr. Rollo. I expected her early, and then Lewis brought word it would be late,--and so it was. Near morning, in fact.'

'Yes. Well?--She did not suffer from being out too late?'

'I'm sure I don't know, sir, what it was. She walked into the hall just as strong and straight as ever, and then she dropped right down on the first stair, and put her hands and face against the bal.u.s.trade, and I couldn't get one word from her-- nor one look,--any more than if she'd been part of the staircase.

'For how long?' asked the gentleman after a short pause, and in a lowered tone.

'It seemed a week to me,' said Mrs. Byw.a.n.k,--'but I only know nothing stirred her till she heard the servants begin to move about the house. And then she got up, in a sort of slow way, so that I thought she would fall. And I put my arm around her, and she laid her head on my shoulder, and so we went upstairs.

But she only said she was "very, very tired," and didn't want any breakfast. I couldn't get another word but that.'

'And since then?'--said her hearer, after another pause in which he seemed to have forgotten himself.

'Since then,' said Mrs. Byw.a.n.k, 'there have been b.a.l.l.s and picnics and dinners enough to take one's breath away. But it don't seem to me she can enjoy them much--she comes home so often with a sort of troubled look that I can't understand.

And when I ask if she's not well, she says, "Yes, very well."

So what is one to to?'

'I don't think you can do anything, Mrs. Byw.a.n.k. Perhaps I can. Is that all you have to tell me?'