Wych Hazel Part 5

'So,' said one of the loiterers in the hall approaching Mr.

Falkirk, 'so my dear sir, you've brought Miss Kennedy! At last!--Now for candidates. If the face match the hand and foot, the supply will be heavy.'

CHAPTER V.

IN THE FOG.

There was mist everywhere. On the winding bed of the river, lying piled like a gray eider-down coverlet; folding itself over the forest trees; floating up to the Mountain House, and hanging about the rocks. But overhead the sky looked bright, and Sirius waved his torch which the vapour had filled with coloured lights. As yet sunrise was not.

In front of the house, where a grey rock started from the very edge of the bank, spreading a platform above the precipice, sat Wych Hazel; her feet so nearly over the rock that they seemed resting on the mist itself; her white scarf falling back from her head like a wreath of lighted coloured vapour.

Perhaps there were no other strangers to the Mountain House within its walls; perhaps the morning was too chill; perhaps all of the 'candidates' were on the other side; for she sat alone. Until the flaming torch of Sirius paled, until the dawn began to shimmer and gleam among the fleeces of mist,--until they parted here and there before the arrows of light, showing spires and houses and a bit of the river in the far distance.

So fair, unfeatured, misty and sparkling at once, lay life before the young gazer. Mr. Falkirk might have moralized thus, standing close behind her as he was, still and silent; but it is not likely he did; useless moralizing was never in Mr.

Falkirk's way.

'How do you like your fortune, Miss Hazel, as you find it at present?' he said.

'Very undefined, sir. Good morning, Mr. Falkirk--what made you get up?'

'My knowledge of your character.'

'So attractive, sir?' She glanced up at him, then looked away over the mist, with her arms crossed over her bosom and a grave look of thought settling down upon her young face; as if womanhood were dawning upon her, with its mysterious opalescent light.

'Evangeline saw her way all clear when she reached the mountain-top,' she said musingly; 'but mine looks misty enough. Mr. Falkirk, will this fog clear away before sunset?'

'Or settle down into rain.'

But while he spoke, the sun mounting higher, shot through the very heart of the mist; and the broken clouds began to roll away in golden vapour, or were furled and drawn up with bands of light. And now came voices from the piazza.

'You knew it last night, Mr. Kingsland? and never told me!'

said an oldish lady. 'And there is the sweet creature this minute, on the rock!'

Wych Hazel sprang to her feet. 'Mr. Falkirk,' she said, 'you are inquired for;'--and darting past him she vanished round the house. Mr. Falkirk, as in duty bound, followed, but when a needful point of view was attained, his charge was nowhere within sight, and he returned to the house to be in readiness to meet her when the bell should ring for breakfast.

But a couple of hours later, when the bell rang, Miss Hazel was not forthcoming. The guests gathered to the breakfast- room. Mr. Falkirk remained in the empty hall, pacing up and down from door to door, then went to see if Wych Hazel were by chance in her room. Mrs. Saddler was in consternation, having heard nothing of her. Mr. Falkirk returned to his walk in the hall, chaffing a little now with something that was not patience. Presently Rollo came down the stairs.

'Good morning.'

'Good morning.'

'Exercise before breakfast?--Or after?'

'Not after,' said Mr. Falkirk; 'but you are late as it is.'

'Better late, if you can't be early. You have a better chance.

I will wait with you, if you are waiting.'

'Don't wait for me,' said Mr. Falkirk, shortly. 'I have no idea when I shall be ready.'

'I had no idea, a little while ago, when I should. By the way, I hope Miss Kennedy is well, this morning?'

'I hope so.'

'She is not down yet?'

'She has been down, and I have not heard of her going up again.'

'In the breakfast-room, perhaps,' said the young man. And pa.s.sing on, he made his way thither, while Mr. Falkirk stood at the hall door. No, Miss Kennedy was not in the breakfast- room; and instead of sitting down Mr. Rollo went out by another way, picking up a roll from the table as he pa.s.sed, and wrapping it in a napkin. He took a straight course to the woods, over the gra.s.s, where no uninstructed eye could see that the dew had been brushed away by a lighter foot than his.

But if lighter, hardly so swift as the springy stride and leap which carried him over yards of the rough way at a bound, and cleared obstacles that would have hindered, at least slightly, most other people. The mountain was quickly won in this style, and Rollo gained a high ledge where the ground lay more level.

He went deliberately here, and used a pair of eyes as quick as might match the feet, though not to notice how the dew sparkled on the moss or how the colours changed in the valley.

He was far above the Mountain House, on the wild hillside. The sun had scattered the fog from the lower country, which lay a wide dreamland to tempt the eye, and nearer by the lesser charms of rock and tree, moss and lichen, light and shadow, played with each other in wildering combinations. But Rollo did not look at valley of hill; his eyes were seeking a gleam of colour which they had seen that morning once before; and seeking it with the spy of an eagle. No gra.s.s here gave sign of a footstep. Soft lichen and unbending ferns kept the secret, if they had one; the evergreens were noisy with birds, but otherwise mute; the fog still settled down in the ravines and hid whatever they held.

Thither Mr. Rollo at last took his way, after a moment's observation: down the woody, craggy sides of a wild dell; the thick vapour into which he plunged sufficiently bewildering even to his practised eyes. Partridges whirred away from before him, squirrels chattered over his head, but his particular quarry Mr. Rollo could nowhere find. Through that ravine and up the next ledge, with the sun rising hotter and hotter, and breakfast long over at the Mountain House.

He found her at last so suddenly that he stopped short. She was tired probably, for she had dropped herself down on the moss, her cheek on her hands, and had dropped her eyelids too, in something very like slumber; the clear brown cheek bearing it usual pink tinges but faintly. The figure curled down upon the moss was rather tall, of a slight build; the features were not just regular; the hair of invisible brown lay in very wayward silky curls; and the eyes, as soon could be seen, were to match, both as to colour and waywardness. The mouth was a very woman's mouth, though the girlish arch lines had hardly yet learned their own powers whether of feeling or persuasion.

Very womanish, too, was the sweep of the arm outline, and the hand and foot were dainty in the extreme. Neither hand or foot stirred for other feet approaching, the pretty gypsy having probably tired herself into something like unconsciousness; and the first sound of which she was thoroughly sensible was her own name. The speaker was standing near her when she looked up, with his hat in his hand, and an air of grave deference. He expressed a fear that she was fatigued.

She had half-dreamily opened her eyes and looked up at first, but there was nothing 'fatigued' in the way the eyes went down again, nor in the quick skill with which the scarf was caught up and flung round her, fold after fold, until she was m.u.f.fled and turbaned like an Egyptian. Then she rose demurely to her feet.

'I thank you, sir, for arousing me. Is Mr. Falkirk here?'

'No--I am alone. But you are at a distance from home. Can you go back without some refreshment?' The words and the speaker were quiet enough, but Wych Hazel's colour stirred uneasily.

'Yes. Don't let me detain you, sir,' she said, putting herself in quick motion across the moss. He met her on the other side of a big boulder and stayed her, though with the quietest manner of interference.

'I beg your pardon--but if you wish to go home--'

'Yes,' she answered, with a half laugh, glancing up at the sun; 'I know. I am only going round this way.'

He stayed her still. 'I can guide you this way,' he said; 'but--it is not the way to the House.'

Another glance at the sun. 'Which is the way?'

'I will show it to you. Do you care most for speed or smooth going? You are tired?'

Wych Hazel knit her brows into the most abortive attempt at a frown. What right had he to suppose that she was tired!

'If you will just show me the way, sir--the shortest; I mean, point out the direction.'

He was standing and waiting her pleasure with contented gravity. 'The direction is not to be followed in a straight line,' said he. 'I can only show you by going before. Is that your meaning?'

'I should like to get home the shortest way,' said she hesitating.

He went on without more words, and maintaining the polished gravity of his first address; but Wych Hazel had reason to remember her walk of that morning. It was a shorter way than he had come, that by which her conductor took her, and in parts easy enough; but in other parts requiring his skill as well as hers to get her over them. He said not a word further; he served her in silence: the vexatious thing was, that he was able to serve her so much. Many a time she had to accept his hand to get past a rude place; often both hands were needed to swing her over a watercourse or leap her down from a rock. She was agile and light of foot; she did what woman could; it was only by sheer necessity that she yielded the mortifying tacit confession to man's superior strength, and gave so often opportunity to a pair of good eyes to see what she was like near at hand. Wych Hazel's own eyes made few discoveries. She could _feel_ every now and then that her conductor's hand and foot were as firm and reliable as the mountain itself. This course of travelling brought them, however, soon to the level of the Mountain House and to plain going. There Mr. Rollo fell behind, allowing the young lady to take her own pace in crossing the lawn and the hall, only attending her like her shadow to the foot of the stairs. With the first reaching of level ground, he had had a full look and gesture of acknowledgment; what became of him afterwards Miss Hazel seemed not to know. _He_ knew that she ran up the first flight of stairs, and that once out of sight her steps drooped instantly.

'So!' said Mr. Kingsland, advancing. 'Really! Rollo my dear fellow, how are we to understand this?'

'Give us an introduction after lunch, will you?' said another.